Rebekah Vardy has accused Coleen Rooney of ‘selling stories on herself’ to the press in explosive new court documents from £1m libel claim.
The former friends have been at loggerheads since Coleen, the wife of former Manchester United and England striker Wayne, accused Rebekah – who is married to Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy of ‘selling stories’ about her private life to The Sun publication in 2019.
Vardy, 38, denied any wrongdoing and later said the stress of their public fall out caused her to have severe anxiety attacks as she was pregnant at that time.
In the court papers, Rebekah claims she’s been made a “scapegoat” by Coleen, who accused her of selling stories about her family to The Sun. The wife of Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy is claiming the stories were leaked by Coleen’s friends and in some cases with her permission.
The documents allege Becky “has deliberately been made a scapegoat by the Defendant for past ‘leaked’ stories in particular about their marriage, which have in fact come from the Defendant’s friends, at times even with the Defendant’s approval.”
The paper states that Sun journalist Dan Wootton had said on talkRADIO on October 19 last year that Coleen had ‘manipulated the media to tell stories about her own life’.
Wootton added that he had ‘written many, many stories’ about her marriage and ‘lots of other things around the Rooneys’ that had come directly from friends of Coleen including some told ‘with her (Coleen’s) approval’, says the document
He went on to say on talkRADIO that nothing had ever come from ‘any of the Vardys’, it adds.
Rebekah describes in her document how Coleen’s public denunciation of her on Instagram, while she was seven months pregnant, had ‘gravely injured her reputation’.
Detailing how Coleen had ’caused her enormous distress and very extreme embarrassment’, she disclosed how she had been bombarded with abuse on social media.
Her legal papers say she even had sickening threats to kill her unborn baby with one message, telling: ‘You fat ugly fu****g rat I genuinely hope you and your baby rot and die an extremely painful death for what you have done.’
Another abusive post said: ‘Your baby deserves to put in the incinerator and so do you, fat nosed c**t. I hope childbirth hurts.’
She also claimed that it led to her name appearing 276,822 times on Twitter on the same day.
Rebekah is suing Coleen for £1million of the damage it has caused her reputation. She is also seeking an injunction restraining Coleen from making similar claims about her in the future ‘whether by herself, her employees, her agent or otherwise.’
Her statement of case accuses Coleen of making her claims ‘in a calculated and deliberate manner that was designed to cause very serious harm and enormous distress’ to her.
It adds: ‘The publication by the Defendant of the words complained of and entirely foreseeable republications and repetitions of them have gravely injured the reputation of the Claimant.’
The statement goes on to say that Coleen’s actions had ‘exposed her (Rebekah) to public ridicule and contempt’ and ’caused her enormous distress and very extreme embarrassment.’
In highly emotional detail, Rebekah’s papers state: ‘The abuse that followed the Post made the Claimant feel suicidal.
‘She suffered from severe panic attacks and anxiety which manifested in being scared to leave her house.’
The document says that it also led to her and family members being harassed by the media had caused her to develop ‘severe insomnia’.
She also claims to have been taken to hospital three times while pregnant due to anxiety attacks as a result of Coleen’s post ‘and the repercussions from it’ .
It adds: ‘The Claimant’s stress was such that she had concerns about losing her baby or going into early labour.’
Rebekah’s lawyers claim in the document that the scandal also led to her footballer husband Jamie being targeted with abuse during football matches.
