Coleen Rooney, wife of English soccer icon Wayne Rooney, defeats Rebekah Vardy in the Players' Wives mud fight. There is abuse and even a declaration of war. Vardy now has to pay around £3million.
Tears, wild insults - and even a declaration of war: Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy delivered what is probably the most spectacular mud fight of gamers' wives. Now, after three years, the almost endless saga initiated via social media has found a clear winner. High Court Judge Karen Steyn sided with the wife of English football icon Wayne Rooney in dismissing the defamation lawsuit brought by ex-international Jamie Vardy's partner.
Vardy will have to pay legal fees of up to £3million for both parties. Rooney's wife accused Vardy of selling false stories about the Rooneys to the Sun tabloid. The court classified this representation as "probable". According to the verdict, Vardy's then-agent Caroline Watts passed on stories about Rooney - and Vardy "knew about this behavior, tolerated it and was actively involved".
That was exactly what she had always vehemently denied, but the evidence apparently spoke against her. Also because Coleen Rooney worked almost like a detective to convict her suspect: in 2019 she blocked all accounts on her Instagram account except for those of her then girlfriend and posted several made-up stories. These then - via Vardy - ended up in the "Sun". Rooney made her suspicions public via social media. Vardy subsequently declared "war" on her and filed the defamation lawsuit.
The trial, which started in May, was dubbed "Wagatha Christie" in the British media. The judge ruled that Rooney's viral disclosure was "essentially true". Vardy "deliberately withheld evidence" in court, including the agent's mobile phone mysteriously sinking into the North Sea before the trial began. During her testimony, the Leicester City attacker's wife broke down in tears three times.
Rooney called her adversary a "wicked, fame-seeking liar". The partners, once teammates in the national team, also bickered in public. The two families will no longer be best friends, even after the verdict.
