TheWagatha Christie scandal rumbled on in the background for nearly three years but, in August this year, it seemed as though the dust had finally settled when the long-running dispute was settled in a court.
With the judge ruling it was, in fact, ‘… Rebekah Vardy’s account’ and that Coleen Rooney hadn’t defamed her, you’d think that the case would be consigned to the history annals as one of the most entertaining celebrity scandals of the 21st century.
But, ‘lo! Just days after it was confirmed that Vardy would have to pay a whopping 90% of Rooney’s legal fees, plus her own – totalling around £1.5 million – she’s cropped up once again on social media to apparently suggest her arch-nemesis donate the money to charity.
On her Instagram stories, Rebekah shared a quote from an old tabloid article about Rooney which read: ‘She’d be far happier to see the money they would have spent on lawyers being used in a more positive and productive way.’ She even went so far as to tag Coleen in the story and wrote, ‘Let’s hope you put your money where your mouth is and some good can come out of this whole embarrassing spectacle.’
The WAG feud kicked off in 2019 when Coleen earned her new moniker as WAGatha Christie when she outed Rebekah Vardy’s account for selling false stories to The Sun newspaper after an impressive sleuthing campaign which saw Coleen plant fake Instagram stories and methodically remove followers. Despite previous attempts to settle out of court, Rebekah eventually sued Coleen for defamation but a 2022 trial ruled that there was ‘evidence… which clearly showed’ Coleen’s claims were ‘substantially true’.
Speaking after her victory back in August, Coleen said, ‘It was not a case I ever sought or wanted. I never believed it should have gone to court at such expense in times of hardship for so many people when the money could have been far better spent helping others.’
While Rebekah Vardy has always vehemently denied the accusations – instead blaming her agent at the time for the leaks – the well-publicised court proceedings had the opposite effect to what she’d intended, and she said afterward in a statement, ‘It is not the result that I had expected, nor believe was just. I brought this action to vindicate my reputation and am devastated by the judge’s finding.’