WAGS AT WAR! Coleen’s genius trap for Rebekah
Coleen Rooney accuses fellow footballer’s wife Rebekah Vardy of leaking stories — after setting an ingenious online trap. But her rival insists it WASN’T her... and calls in lawyers
WHEN Coleen Rooney became suspicious that someone close to her was leaking details of her life to the media, she devised a cunning trap to catch them. In a move worthy of a classic whodunnit, she planted fake ‘stories’ on her social media accounts. Then she blocked all her followers until only one suspect was left with access to her messages. Yesterday, ‘Wag-atha Christie’ finally revealed the identity of the ‘culprit’... pointing the finger at fellow footballer’s wife Rebekah Vardy. But unlike a detective novel, this tale did not have a neat denouement. Ms Vardy – the pregnant wife of Wayne Rooney’s exEngland teammate Jamie Vardy – angrily denied it, suggesting the stories were leaked by hackers who had infiltrated her Instagram account. Now the pair look set to end up in court after Ms Vardy referred the allegation to her lawyers. The unseemly row erupted yesterday morning when Ms Rooney told her 1.3million Twitter followers there had been ‘a burden in my life for a few years now and finally I have got to the bottom of it’. She added that someone she ‘trusted to follow me on my personal Instagram account’ had been ‘consistently informing The Sun newspaper of my private posts and stories’. After developing a ‘suspicion’ about who it was, she blocked every account bar one from viewing her posts. The mother-of-four, 33, then posted false stories – including one about the Rooneys’ basement in rural Cheshire being flooded by Storm Lorenzo, which popped up in the media yesterday.
‘Now I know for certain which account/ individual it’s come from,’ she wrote. ‘I have saved and screenshotted all the original stories which clearly show just one person has viewed them. It’s... Rebekah Vardy’s account.’
Ms Vardy, 37, hit back on Twitter: ‘I’m not being funny but I don’t need the money, what would I gain from selling stories on you? I liked you a lot Coleen and I’m so upset that you have chosen to do this especially when I’m heavily pregnant.’
Ms Vardy was last night said to be cutting short her holiday in Dubai to return and clear her name.
A source close to her said ‘around ten people’ have had access to her social media account over the years, including staff at her former PR agency.
One friend said: ‘This is all confusing as I know there is a period of time that Becky was not following Coleen on Instagram but stories about Coleen were still coming out.’ Her spokesman said she was ‘very upset and stressed’ and had ‘passed it to
her legal team to deal with’. ‘Such a shame that Coleen didn’t just call her when she had her number,’ the spokesman added. Legal experts said Ms Vardy could have a claim for defamation – and Ms Rooney could potentially make a counter-claim for invasion of privacy. The spat soon became the top trending story on Twitter in the UK. Celebrities waded in, with ex-WAG Danielle Lloyd posting rat emojis under Ms Rooney’s post.
Even Helen Wood – a former prostitute who had sex with Wayne Rooney in 2009 – called Ms Vardy ‘a snake in the grass’. The Sun yesterday said each of the stories it ran on Ms Rooney was put to her representatives before publication and each time they declined to comment.
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