Last week, the verdict finally came in the long-running Wagatha Christie case. To recap, in 2019, Coleen Rooney did a social media post where she described the clever sting operation she ran on her Instagram, trying to figure out which one of her friends was selling information about her to the Sun. The sting operation worked, and Rooney identified Rebekah Vardy as the person who was selling her out. Vardy then decided to sue Rooney for libel/defamation. Rooney tried to convince Vardy that the situation didn’t need to go to trial, but Vardy wouldn’t listen. Vardy lost, and the judge took a very dim view of the fact that Vardy had actively destroyed evidence in the case. Now there’s nothing left to do but pay all of the legal bills. Apparently, Coleen Rooney wants to make sure that Vardy pays for everything.
Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy are set for one last dramatic High Court showdown over who will foot the multi-million-pound bill for their costly ‘Wagatha Christie’ libel battle. Sources close to Mrs Rooney – who won the case last week – last night told The Mail on Sunday she will fight to make sure Mrs Vardy pays the full amount, estimated to be up to £3million.
Usually a winning party will still have to pay about 30 per cent of the costs. But Mrs Rooney’s team claim the judge’s damning judgment that Mrs Vardy did sell stories about her to The Sun newspaper means it is ‘inconceivable’ that she won’t be made to pay the full amount. Mrs Justice Steyn ruled on Friday that Mrs Vardy, 40, and her agent Caroline Watt had leaked stories about Mrs Rooney, wife of ex-England skipper Wayne.
After Mrs Vardy brought legal action, Mrs Rooney, 36, offered her a ‘drop hands’ offer, which meant they would both walk away, paying their own costs. She also suggested they make a charity donation. But Mrs Vardy declined, leading to a costly High Court trial. Now, after her victory, Mrs Rooney wants her rival to pay up.
A source close to Mrs Rooney said: ‘Coleen didn’t want this to happen. She knew the money would be better spent on so many other things but she won’t be letting Rebekah get away with not paying the full costs. She tried to settle this early on but Rebekah wouldn’t have it. And if you look at the outlining of the judgment, it is inconceivable that a judge wouldn’t agree she will pay them in full. Let’s not forget, this action was brought by Rebekah and she lost spectacularly.’
During a preliminary hearing in March last year, the costs were estimated at £1.3million. Now, after the case’s two-week High Court hearing, reports have claimed the total could be £3million.
There is speculation that Mrs Vardy and her husband, Leicester City striker Jamie, may have to sell their Portuguese villa to pay the legal bill.
I love this? I love that Coleen Rooney is making it known that she repeatedly offered Vardy a chance to just walk away, and Vardy was hellbent on making an ass out of herself. This is my kind of pettiness too – now that Vardy has lost so thoroughly, of course she should pay for everything. It’s insane to think Rooney would have to pay out of pocket for any part of this – Vardy was the one selling info about Rooney, and then Vardy brought the lawsuit. Anyway, I hope the Portuguese villa is sold!
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- Rebekah Vardy departs The Royal Courts Of Justice, London, England, UK on Monday 16 May, 2022 where she is suing Coleen Rooney for libel after Rooney accused Vardy of leaking stories to the press.,Image: 691838472, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Please credit photographer and agency when publishing as Justin Ng/UPPA/Avalon., Model Release: no, Credit line: Justin Ng / Avalon
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- Coleen Rooney departs The Royal Courts Of Justice, London, England, UK on Monday 16 May, 2022 where Rebekah Vardy is suing Coleen Rooney for libel after Rooney accused Vardy of leaking stories to the press.,Image: 691838575, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Please credit photographer and agency when publishing as Justin Ng/UPPA/Avalon., Model Release: no, Credit line: Justin Ng / Avalon
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- Coleen Rooney arrives at The Royal Courts Of Justice, London, England, UK on Tuesday 17 May, 2022 where Rebekah Vardy is suing Coleen Rooney for libel after Rooney accused Vardy of leaking stories to the press.,Image: 691995972, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Please credit photographer and agency when publishing as Justin Ng/UPPA/Avalon., Model Release: no, Credit line: Justin Ng / Avalon
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- Coleen Rooney arrives at The Royal Courts Of Justice, London, England, UK on Tuesday 17 May, 2022 where Rebekah Vardy is suing Coleen Rooney for libel after Rooney accused Vardy of leaking stories to the press.,Image: 691995982, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Please credit photographer and agency when publishing as Justin Ng/UPPA/Avalon., Model Release: no, Credit line: Justin Ng / Avalon
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- Rebekah Vardy arrives at The Royal Courts Of Justice, London, England, UK on Thursday 19 May, 2022 where she is suing Coleen Rooney for libel after Rooney accused Vardy of leaking stories to the press.,Image: 692643991, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Please credit photographer and agency when publishing as Justin Ng/UPPA/Avalon., Model Release: no, Credit line: Justin Ng / Avalon
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- Rebekah Vardy arrives at The Royal Courts Of Justice, London, England, UK on Thursday 19 May, 2022 where she is suing Coleen Rooney for libel after Rooney accused Vardy of leaking stories to the press.,Image: 692644046, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Please credit photographer and agency when publishing as Justin Ng/UPPA/Avalon., Model Release: no, Credit line: Justin Ng / Avalon
oh no, not the villa!! Wonder what Vardy’s husband thinks of this…..
also…..which one is which in these pictures, lol.
Jamie Vardy is just as vile as his wife – he was caught on video making racist comments and pretty much got away with it. They are both trash!
I hope she does get stuck with the full bill – might make her rethink her behavior.
Vardy is the one in yellow suit and the green top.
Lol you mean those pics arent of the same person wearing different outfits? 🤣
This is my first time clicking on one of these articles because I had to give in and figure out WTF Wagatha Christie meant and I have no idea who they are and that those are two different people. And I’m good with faces LOL
They really look interchangeable to me, tbh. If ever there was a clear cut case to level all the costs on one litigant, this is it. Bye bye villa!
@Becks1, not only was Vardy selling stories to the Scum, but as shown in court the messages she was texting to her agent were utterly vile about Coleen Rooney. She was pretending to be Coleen’s friend and calling her disgusting, foul names behind her back. This woman with her 5 children from three different relationships kept trading upwards till she bagged mega wealthy current husband, footballer Jamie Vardy (also a nasty piece of work.)
The difference between the two of them is that Colleen and Wayne (her mega wealthy footballer husband) have known each other since they were 12 and been together since they were both 16 and broke. Wayne might have had prospects when they got together but a lot of young men with his skills don’t make it to the big leagues.
It looks like Rebekah set out to bag herself a wealthy husband.
Wayne has cheated a couple of times and she’s forgiven him and taken him back but she’s meant to be a fairly devout Catholic which may be why (or of course because she loves him and they have children together) rather than the money, particularly as she’d be entitled to an enormous chunk of the family assets since they’ve been together so long.
Also, Colleen has a reputation as being a fairly nice person and she gets on well with Wayne’s family (illustrated by his cousin, Claire being mentioned as her friend in the court case).
Jamie Vardy’s family supposedly hate Rebekah and he hadn’t spoken to them since he married her. She does *not* have a reputation of being a nice person (unless you can be useful to her)
From what I’ve read elsewhere his family tried to warn him off her – when his career and money dries up she will trade up again (or at least try to). She even sold stories to the Scum about his team mates and their families. She is quite hated among the English WAG community.
@Talia – to add Coleen has never courted fame and the media. Unlike Vardy, who is a massive fameho.
Coleen came across better than I thought at the trail – she was calm and articulate, sticking to the facts. Vardy was a terrible witness who shot herself in the head, repeatedly.
Oh this is all so messy!! Thanks for the additional gossip.
Here’s a situation where insulating someone from the consequences of their behaviour really won’t do.
Hardy had lots of opportunities to be a decent human being and chose not to take any of them.
Absolutely. She was the one who instigated and escalated. These are the consequences.
The only thing I am getting from this whole saga is that I desperately want a dog so I can name her Wagatha Christie and her puppies Poirot and Jane.
IKR?? I just think “wagatha christie” is so clever, the british tabs are really good at that
To be fair the phrase was actually coined by a regular punter on Twitter and adopted by the tabs, apparently.
Oh! ❤️❤️❤️
What do you call that a sociopath? Its pretty bold to know you ACTUALLY did do something foul and then press ahead to sue.
I’d call it a narcissist. Narcissists can’t admit they’re wrong about anything, and they will lie more and more forcefully as it becomes more and more obvious that they’re wrong.
Trump did this all the time; confronted with facts, he’d bellow lies ever more desperately.
This woman was so desperate to be ~seen~ to be innocent, she engaged in this massive pantomime to try to appear that way, even though she wasn’t.
Not the Portuguese villllllaaaaaaaa
I’m so confused why she ever thought suing was a good idea 😐😐 she knew she’d done it, what on earth did she hope to achieve? And playing devil’s advocate, if she hadn’t done it, I’m still a bit confused as to her end goal of taking it ALL the way through when there were meaningful offers to settle. Smh, more money than sense
Ego and revenge – she thought she was smarter than Rooney.
She got caught and thought she could lie her way out of it. Obvious MENSA candidate.
My understanding is that none of the settlement offers included Colleen admitting she was wrong, making a public statement of such and paying compensation to RV (the offers were of a payment to charity).
Basically, Colleen wasn’t willing to tell what we now know from the judgment would have been a string of lies in the press to benefit Rebekah and pay her shedloads of money to apologise (for damaging RV’s reputation by telling the truth) and Rebekah wouldn’t settle for anything less.
Rebekah has always got away with her behaviour in the past – she thought she would again.
The judgment is unintentionally hilarious in places. The sheer number of computers / tablets / phones that supposedly irretrievably broke down, randomly deleted all relevant data or in the case of Rebekah’s agent’s phone, got ‘accidentally’ dropped off a boat into the North Sea immediately after the disclosure of its data was ordered by the court is just mind boggling (and the Judge wasn’t impressed either).
My favorite part is the discussion of how her laptop crashing while the phone was connected caused the deletion of her entire chat, including media, with her assistant, but no other Whatsapp chats. Hahahaha! There’s just one line pointing out that is not how Whatsapp data is stored, so even if that were something that could happen, it wouldn’t delete one specific chat… Vardy was so obvious and incompetent with her evidence destruction, it was comical
For the avoidance of all doubt, this was all on Rebekah’s side. Colleen has much better behaved electronics and had no problem handing over all relevant documents.
When you read the judgement you have to keep in mind that in British courts the language is always deliberately understated and neutral. So when a judge says something is “surprising” that is the equivalent of “are you freaking kidding me?!?” , if a confluence of event is “unlikely” that’s “LOL, nope, didn’t happen” and when she says that a witness was “unconvincing” that’s “they’re a lying liar who lies so much their pants are permanently aflame.” This was one of the most hilariously scathing judgements in many a year, it was BRUTAL to Vardy even if at first reading you might think “oh that’s not too bad.”
Just when I thought that Vardy couldn’t come out of this looking any more clueless and incapable of making a sensible decision we get this. I’m really starting to appreciate Coleen and her strategy of dealing with this right the way through.
Bye-bye Portuguese villa!
I’m not sure how the UK system works, but I read the judgment and the court had to employ two different tech forensic experts to try to recover her (deleted) Whatsapp messages and determine if her (obviously false) explanation for losing them was plausible- spoiler alert, no! The section on evidence in the judgment is absolutely damning.
All those costs should be borne 100% by Vardy and, again don’t know UK law, but frankly to me Vardy is flirting with an interference with the administration of justice finding (this happened after orders to preserve evidence were served) and I’m somewhat surprised she’s not facing a sanction. I guess the judge didn’t have enough evidence to definitively find she destroyed evidence and lied for purposes of actually fining her, but the costs should still only be paid by Vardy for all that. If Rooney does have to pay some %, I hope they exclude the tech forensics from the total because that should not be on Rooney at all.
I don’t think the court instructed any experts – I think each side each had one expert so Rebekah basically paid someone to say she was lying. UK experts are required to accept that their first duty is to the court so her expert had to answer the questions asked.
I’m really confused by people who say that both parties’ reputation was damaged by this trial. I’ve come out of it with a lot of respect for Coleen and her unwillingness to cave, and an even worse option of Rebekah than I had before.
I also massively enjoyed watching the whole spectacle. And I’m not sorry about it.
I agree and in any event, other than publicly admitting she was wrong / deliberately lied (which the judgment has established she wasn’t and didn’t), Colleen had no way of *stopping* the proceedings if Rebekah wasn’t prepared to be reasonable.
If Colleen had walked away, Rebekah would have got a judgment in default, i.e. the court would have found everything she said to be true and Colleen to be a liar. If Colleen wasn’t prepared to give in (which less wealthy people have had to do in libel / slander cases in the past because they can’t afford the legal fees), she had no choice *but* to go to court.
I’m impressed by Colleen too. I knew very little about her other than she looks really good for a mother of four and seems to really love the cheating douche she married.
Interestingly enough, it’s never been suggested he’s had an affair – it’s verified visits to prostitutes and implied one night stands with women he’s met in bars. Also (and I know it’s a low bar), he’s never been accused of any sort of sex pest (or worse) behaviour. Frankly, he comes across as a bit thick but under it all a reasonably decent man and a good father. People online who have met him says he’s great with young fans and not at all standoffish even when he’s approached while going about normal life (i.e. not at a public appearance). I think Colleen is worth 10 of him but she’s obviously decided what she can put up with and they seem to have a solid marriage notwithstanding his behaviour. I suppose when you’ve been together 20 years and have 4 children, it’s hard to throw in the towel.
There is a massive difference between Colleen and Rebecca. Colleen may enjoy the wealth and trappings of her life as Wayne’s wife- but she never strikes as wanting to be the centre of attention herself. She’s also been with him since far before he was famous and I think despite all of his crappy behaviour I think they understand each other.
Wayne and Colleen are also said to do a lot for the Liverpool Children’s hospital. I’ve never heard anything like this from Rebekah
Both Colleen and Wayne have come out of this with reputations enhanced – his testimony was eagerly awaited as its general assumed that’s he’s Not That Bright, but he handled it very well indeed. Colleen has come out of it fantastically – she’s basically shown herself as someone who loves her family (she was miserable in the USA because she was so far away from her folks), hates The Sun, guards her privacy and was articulate and dignified throughout. The legal and media people I follow have been universally impressed with her. She’s clearly a very competent lady indeed.
Rebekah Vardy, Rebekah Brooks, Rebekah Mercer… Don’t name your kid Rebekah.
Play stupid games. Win stupid prizes. Rebekah played this all wrong once she was caught. Now, she should have to pay for everything.
The English legal blogger David Allen Green has a really good article about this case (you’ll find him on Twitter) in Prospect magazine exploring why on earth it went to court in the first place, and he thinks Vardy really belIeves that even though her agent (in both the commercial and legal sense) was leaking stuff, and even though she knew that she was, that it doesn’t mean she’s in the wrong and she’s genuinely aggrieved that she was called out. She really does think she’s the victim and that’s why she hasn’t backed down. It’s quite funny because he normally covers Very Serious Matters Indeed, but had (like much of the legal community) found this case fascinating.
How much could The Sun have possibly paid her? Not enough to pay off this mistake.
It looks like they didn’t pay her anything – she was trading the stories for positive press on herself – the equivalent of handing over stories on Harry and Meghan in return for gushing stories about how in love and happy Kate and William are.
She told her agent she wanted paying for one story but the press already had it so she was out of luck.
She did try to monetise her public image with TV appearances, articles (under her own name) in the Sun etc. I assume if the Sun / other tabloids had shredded her it would have been harder to do that