Coleen Rooney has claimed the ‘intense’ anxiety caused by the Wagatha Christie court case triggered a secret illness.
The TV personality, 37, was sued for libel by Jamie’s wife Rebekah Vardy, 41, last May with a nine-day trial ultimately resulting in Coleen’s favour.
The drama-filled story will be covered in a Disney+ documentary dropping on October 18 – which will follow Coleen and her husband Wayne Rooney through the high-profile court case.
In 2019 Coleen accused her former close friend Rebekah of leaking private stories about her to the British press, something that the latter continues to deny.
Speaking to the camera for part of her docu-series The Real Wagatha Story, Coleen revealed the May 2022 court case triggered her reactive arthritis, which causes redness, swelling and inflammation in the joints.
Behind the scenes: Coleen Rooney has claimed the ‘intense’ anxiety caused by the Wagatha Christie court case triggered a secret illness
Rival: The TV personality, 37, was sued for libel by Jamie’s wife Rebekah Vardy (pictured in 2019), 41, last May with a nine-day trial ultimately resulting in Coleen’s favour
She said: ‘It caused anxiety and there were lots of tears. I have reactive arthritis. I’ve had it previously but this situation brought it on a lot more.
‘It stripped me of my character and I didn’t want to socialise with people. I was completely in my own world. It was not a nice place to be.’
The WAG continued: ‘It hit home just how low I was at that time. My emotions really came out and that made the interview process quite intense, but then it was also a good chance to reflect.
‘I stuck to my guns from beginning to end. My story never changed from day one, and I was telling the truth.’
The documentary is the first time that Coleen is opening up about what life was like behind the scenes during the court case, in which Ms Justice Steyn ruled in her favour.
Coleen also admitted she never expected the case to blow up to the extent that it did.
The mother-of-four, who has been with former Everton player Wayne since she was 16 years old, continued: ‘I thought there might be a few cross words said, but I didn’t think it would explode like it did.
‘It consumed my life for a few years so it’s a weight off my shoulders now, and I can get back to focusing properly on my family and friends, who mean a lot to me.’
How it all began: On October 9, 2019, Coleen Rooney, now 36, accused Rebekah Vardy’s Instagram account of leaking ‘false stories’ about her to the press (above)
Marriage: Wayne joined Coleen each day in the May 2022 court case
In court: Rebekah brought a libel trial against Coleen after Coleen accused Rebekah of leaking details of Coleen’s private life to the press (Rebekah pictured with her footballer husband Jamie Vardy during the trial in May last year)
Coleen’s comments come after Rebekah Vardy blasted her and Wayne’s marriage.
The 41-year-old reality star – who is married to soccer player Jamie Vardy, 36 – was furious after Coleen discussed the Wagatha Christie feud with British Vogue and took to Instagram to slam her rival.
After a fan accused her of being jealous of Coleen, Rebekah hit back: ‘Jealous of what exactly! Spare me the pain seriously… I wouldn’t put up with my husband sleeping with hookers end of! No excuses.’
In the interview, Coleen spoke out about the libel trial Rebekah brought against her, after Coleen accused her of leaking details of Coleen’s private life to the press.
Coleen won the trial but Rebekah criticised her for bringing it up again, writing: ‘What I don’t get why you would want to keep bringing it up. It’s boring now! The public doesn’t care and neither do I. She won that’s the end of it! Be happy move on… because I know I have.
‘She just can’t let it go.’
One fan defended Coleen by saying: ‘You dragged her through the courts to hang yourself so she has a right to tell her side tbh. You made the mistakes here, not her!’
Rebekah argued back: ‘What a year later! Give me a break! And yes I did because I don’t do anything wrong! And I’ll take that to my grave! If I had done it believe me I would have flicked the middle finger and said yeah and what!’
The Instagram user replied: ‘You were found guilty though by the top suits and you can’t really preach innocence now can you? I know you’d rather it go away but she still has a right to tell her side and her experience of this ordeal too and people want to listen.’
And, Rebekah continued: ‘I’ve preached innocence from day one and that won’t change! And are you telling me they don’t get things wrong… because I have a very long list that they f***** up! But it doesn’t suit the narrative! It’s fine I’m cool with being the bad guy! Maybe I’ll just start playing up to that now.’
During last year’s blockbuster Wagatha Christie libel trial, text messages between Rebekah and her agent Caroline Watt were revealed to the court in which they discussed leaking stories about Coleen to the press.
In an interview with The Sunday Times, Coleen said one of the most hurtful things came after Rebekah, who Wayne’s wife accuses of doing things ‘only to be in the public eye’, discovered Coleen had blocked her on Instagram.
‘What a c*** x’ Vardy wrote, before following it up with: ‘Maybe I should say something about Rosie x’. Rosie McLoughlin was Coleen’s sister who died aged 14 following a lifelong battle with Rett syndrome.
Coleen revealed how she would sit up until 2am working on her Wagatha Christie sting. She also revealed that her football star husband Wayne Rooney told her to tell the truth in court.
Coleen emerged victorious in the Wagatha Christie battle, with Vardy ordered to pay up to £1.5million for her legal fees.
Rebekah had sued Coleen for libel over an accusation her account had been used to leak details of Coleen’s private life to the press. This came after Coleen staged an elaborate sting operation to find out who was passing on stories about her to The Sun.
Of the discussion surrounding her sister, Coleen said: ‘How can someone try to create a story around someone’s sister who’s passed away? How can you be that vicious?’
‘I’ve never fallen out with the partner of another footballer in my life and I never thought I would,’ Coleen revealed in her latest interview.
That was until she suspected Rebekah of leaking stories about her to the press.
However Coleen said that before the drama, she had already felt her and Rebekah’s friendship was ‘unnatural’ and ‘forced’, adding: ‘I’m very savvy about that.’
She said that she ‘knew she (Rebekah) enjoyed the limelight’ and would ‘do things only to be in the public eye’. Coleen also said she ‘wasn’t surprised’ by Rebekah’s behaviours.
Acid tongue: It comes after Rebekah Vardy blasted Coleen and Wayne’s marriage, slamming Wayne for straying during his relationship with Coleen (Rebekah pictured in May last year)
Couple: WAG Coleen married former footballer Wayne in 2008 and their union has been at the centre of many scandals since, including Wayne being involved with other women
On her strategy for the court case, ahead of a tell-all Disney+ documentary, Coleen also revealed her husband Wayne told her to ‘just tell the truth, because no one can go wrong with the truth.’
She added: ‘If you lie, you get nervous and get caught.’
Between September 2017 and October 2019 The Sun ran a number of articles about Coleen, including that she travelled to Mexico to look into baby ‘gender selection’ treatment, her plan to revive her TV career and the flooding of her basement.
But on October 9, 2019, Coleen shared a jaw-dropping Instagram post revealing she had been sharing false stories and limiting the viewers to just one person to see if they ended up in the newspaper. The goal was to uncover the leak.
The iconic end line read: ‘It’s ……. Rebekah Vardy’s account’. The public dispute makes headlines around the world, with the hashtag #WagathaChristie trending.
Of the reveal, Coleen said Wayne had tried to convince her not to post it and instead ‘just get rid of your Instagram’.
‘No that’s not the point,’ she said – adding she then went on to conduct her sting operation herself.
Coleen explained that Wayne is ‘not a big social media person’ and says that ‘keeping things to myself’ is one of her ‘coping mechanisms’.
She acknowledged that people may question why she wouldn’t share everything with her husband, but argued that it is ‘my battle’.
‘What am I going to get out of telling him?,’ she told the newspaper. ‘There’s nothing he can do. I’ve got to do this by myself.’
Rebekah was said to have scored one of the worst own goals in British legal history after a High Court judge dismissed her evidence as ‘evasive or implausible’ and accused her of deliberately deleting WhatsApp messages central to the case.
Of finding out she had won the case, Coleen said it ‘took a while to sink’ but said that once she realised ‘it gone done’ that she felt a ‘nice feeling’.
Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story aires on Disney+ on Wednesday, October 18
Wagatha Christie timeline: How Coleen and Rebekah’s war unfolded
September 2017 to October 2019 – The Sun runs a number of articles about Coleen, including that she travelled to Mexico to look into baby ‘gender selection’ treatment, her plan to revive her TV career and the flooding of her basement.
October 9, 2019 – Coleen uses social media to accuse Rebekah of selling stories from her private Instagram account to the tabloids.
Coleen says she spent five months attempting to work out who was sharing information about her and her family based on posts she had made on her personal social media page.
After sharing a series of ‘false’ stories and using a process of elimination, Coleen claims they were viewed by one Instagram account, belonging to Rebekah.
Rebekah, then pregnant with her fifth child, denies the allegations and says various people had access to her Instagram over the years.
She claims to be ‘so upset’ by Coleen’s accusation, later adding: ‘I thought she was my friend but she completely annihilated me.’
The public dispute makes headlines around the world, with the hashtag #WagathaChristie trending.
February 13, 2020 – In a tearful appearance on ITV’s Loose Women, Rebekah says the stress of the dispute caused her to have severe anxiety attacks and she ‘ended up in hospital three times’. Coleen says in a statement that she does not want to ‘engage in further public debate’.
Shortly after Coleen’s public accusation, Rebekah – who was pregnant and on holiday in Dubai at the time – denied any involvement (above)
June 23, 2020 – It emerges that Rebekah has launched libel proceedings against Coleen.
Rebekah’s lawyers allege she ‘suffered extreme distress, hurt, anxiety and embarrassment as a result of the publication of the post and the events which followed’.
November 19-20, 2020 – The libel battle has its first High Court hearing in London. A judge rules that Coleen’s October 2019 post ‘clearly identified’ Rebekah as being ‘guilty of the serious and consistent breach of trust’.
Mr Justice Warby concludes that the ‘natural and ordinary’ meaning of the posts was that Rebekah had ‘regularly and frequently abused her status as a trusted follower of Coleen’s personal Instagram account by secretly informing The Sun of Coleen’s private posts and stories’.
February 8-9, 2022 – A series of explosive messages between Rebekah and her agent Caroline Watt – which Coleen’s lawyers allege were about her – are revealed at a preliminary court hearing.
The court is told Rebekah was not referring to Coleen when she called someone a ‘nasty bitch’ in one exchange with Ms Watt.
Coleen’s lawyers seek further information from the WhatsApp messages, but the court is told that Ms Watt’s phone fell into the North Sea after a boat she was on hit a wave, before further information could be extracted from it.
February 14 – Coleen is refused permission to bring a High Court claim against Ms Watt for misuse of private information to be heard alongside the libel battle. A High Court judge, Mrs Justice Steyn, says the bid was brought too late and previous opportunities to make the claim had not been taken.
April 13 – Ms Watt is not fit to give oral evidence at the upcoming libel trial, the High Court is told as the case returns for another hearing.
The agent revokes permission for her witness statement to be used, and withdraws her waiver which would have allowed Sun journalists to say whether she was a source of the allegedly leaked stories.
April 29 – Rebekah ‘appears to accept’ that her agent was the source of allegedly leaked stories, Coleen’s barrister David Sherborne tells the High Court. He argues that a new witness statement submitted by Rebekah suggests Ms Watt was the source but Rebekah claims she ‘did not authorise or condone her’.
Rebekah’s lawyer Hugh Tomlinson says the statement did not contain ‘any change whatever in the pleaded case’, with her legal team having no communication with Ms Watt.
May 10 onwards – The trial lasts seven days
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