Rebekah Vardy has been mandated to contribute £1.5 million to Coleen Rooney’s legal fees after their Wagatha Christie libel trial.
Mrs. Vardy must pay 90% of Rooney’s fees, according to a judgement handed down by Judge Justice Steyn on Tuesday. The remaining £800,000 must be paid by November 15 at 4 p.m.
Rooney accused Vardy of leaking information about her to the public in a social media post she made on October 9, 2019, which served as the focal point of the lawsuit.
In reference to the well-known British crime writer Agatha Christie, the post caused Rooney to be called “Wagatha Christie” on social media.
Vardy, who had previously denied being guilty of disclosing Rooney’s private information, declared she will sue Rooney in June 2020. The case eventually made it to the High Court in May of this year.
Vardy expected to win the case, but the judge ruled that Rooney’s social media post was “essentially factual” and that Vardy was to blame for disclosing Rooney’s personal details to the media.
In her ruling, Judge Steyn said Rooney’s evidence was “honest and reliable”, but labelled Vardy’s evidence “manifestly inconsistent… evasive or implausible”.
Who is Rebekah Vardy?
Jamie Vardy, an English football player, is married to Rebekah Vardy (née Miranda, formerly Nicholson), an English media figure.
She competed on Dancing on Ice in 2021 and I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! in 2017. She lost the “Wagatha Christie” trial, a highly publicized libel action against Coleen Rooney, in 2022.
Vardy was found to have been responsible for providing false information about Rooney to the British tabloid The Sun.
Personal life
Rebekah Vardy was raised in Norwich and has stated in numerous interviews, most recently in 2020, that she was forced to mature too quickly after experiencing abuse as a youngster and becoming homeless at the age of 15.
When she was 11 years old, her parents, Carlos and Alison, split. As both of them moved on to other relationships, she travelled from city to city, residing in Norwich, Reading, and Oxford. At age 17, she began dating electrician Mark Godden, whom she subsequently wed in Mexico.
While promoting night clubs in 2014, Vardy had the opportunity to meet football player Jamie Vardy. On May 25, 2016, they got married at Peckforton Castle in Cheshire.
Rebekah Vardy has five children total from her three previous marriages: a daughter, Megan, was born in 2005 with her ex-husband Steve Clarke; a son, Taylor, was born in 2010 with footballer Luke Foster; and three daughters, Sofia (born in 2014), Finlay (born in 2017), and Olivia Grace (born in 2019) were born to Vardy, her current husband.
Ella, Jamie’s daughter from a previous relationship, also has her as a stepmother.
Libel trial against Coleen Rooney
The wife of another footballer, Wayne Rooney, Coleen Rooney, claimed in a Twitter message on October 9 that The Sun had obtained posts from her private Instagram account.
Rooney said that she had put restrictions on who might view the posts in order to find out who was selling the rumors. She claimed that Vardy’s account was the only one who had seen the posts.
A combination of the football word WAG with mystery author Agatha Christie, this Tweet gained notoriety under the moniker “Wagatha Christie.”
Vardy reacted to the charges on her own Twitter account and claimed that her Instagram had been hacked. It was reported in June 2020 that Vardy was suing Rooney for slander.
Vardy prevailed in the initial phase of her trial, laying the groundwork for subsequent libel proceedings and earning nearly £23,000 in Rooney’s legal fees.
The two women made an effort to settle their dispute out of court by deciding to postpone future legal actions until February 2021.
In May 2022, the libel trial got underway at the Royal Courts of Justice in London.
Vardy’s claim was rejected by the judge on July 29, 2022, who said Rooney’s accusation was “basically true.”
Vardy expressed sadness and disappointment over the outcome but said she would not challenge the ruling.
