Coleen Rooney's fake 'Wagatha Christie' Instagram posts are revealed
The Wagatha Christie files in full: Coleen Rooney’s FAKE Instagram posts about ‘gender selection’ treatment and flooded basement she used to ‘snare Rebekah Vardy’ are revealed in court for first time
- Three fake stories posted by Coleen Rooney on her private Instagram account in ‘Wagatha Christie’ probe
- Coleen says she restricted viewers to only Rebekah Vardy’s account, to see whether stories would be leaked
- Coleen accused Rebekah of leaking ‘false stories’ about her private life after months-long ‘sting operation’
- Rebekah denies the allegations and has sued Coleen over the ‘untrue and unjustified defamatory attack’
- * MailOnline’s liveblog on the ‘Wagatha Christie’ trial can be followed throughout today by clicking HERE *
The three fake stories posted by Coleen Rooney on her private Instagram account as part of her ‘Wagatha Christie’ investigation were revealed in court documents today as the bomshell £3million libel trial continued.
Coleen has said she planted the false stories on the account as part of a ‘sting operation’, with the viewers restricted to only Rebekah Vardy’s account, to see whether they would be leaked to The Sun newspaper.
One of these stories revealed in the High Court papers in London this morning was posted by Coleen on January 22, 2019 when she uploaded a picture on the private account, showing damage to her car after a collision.
The next day Rebekah said in a message to her agent Caroline Watt: ‘She’s a nasty b***h x’ and ‘I’ve taken a big dislike to her!… Would love to leak those stories x’. Rebekah claims her comments were not about Coleen.
The libel case follows a viral social media post in October 2019, in which Coleen said she had carried out a ‘sting operation’ and accused Rebekah, 40, of leaking ‘false stories’ about her private life to the press.
Rebekah, who is married to Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy, denies leaking stories to the media and is suing her fellow footballer’s wife for libel, while Coleen is defending the claim on the basis her post was ‘substantially true’.
A second story posted by Coleen allegedly ‘revealed’ the Rooneys had been battling to deal with a flood at their £20million Cheshire mansion in the wake of a storm, which led to an article in The Sun in October 2019.
As part of the ‘sting operation’ Coleen Rooney planted three false stories on her private Instagram account, with the viewers restricted to only Rebekah Vardy’s account, to see whether they would be leaked to The Sun newspaper. One of these stories was posted on April 8, 2019, with Coleen claiming she was travelling to Mexico to look into a procedure to determine a baby’s sex. ‘Let’s go and see what this gender selection is all about,’ Mrs Rooney posted, accompanied with a number of heart emojis
The newspaper’s article was headlined ‘Wayne and Coleen Rooney’s £20million ‘Morrisons mansion’ flooded during Storm Lorenzo’.
It read: ‘Coleen Rooney has weathered plenty of storms during her 11-year marriage, but the latest one wasn’t to do with husband Wayne. I can reveal last week’s horrendous weather has wreaked havoc at the Rooneys’ £20million family home, flooding their basement.’
The court heard that the post, which was only visible to Rebekah’s Instagram account, showed a bottle of wine and was captioned: ‘Needed after today… flood in the basement of our new house… when it all seemed to be going so well.’
The third of the trio of stories revealed today was posted by Coleen on April 8, 2019 – with the 36-year-old claiming that she was travelling to Mexico to look into a procedure to determine a baby’s sex.
‘Let’s go and see what this gender selection is all about,’ Coleen posted, accompanied with a number of heart emojis and what appeared to be a grimacing face emoji.
Around four months later, The Sun published a story online on August 15 2019 with the headline ‘Col’s baby girl bid’, marked as an exclusive, detailing Mrs Rooney’s alleged ‘desperate bid to have a baby girl’.
On January 22, 2019, Coleen Rooney posted a picture on her private Instagram, showing damage to her car after a collision. The next day Rebekah Vardy says in a WhatsApp message to Caroline Watt: ‘She’s a nasty b***h x’ and ‘I’ve taken a big dislike to her!… Would love to leak those stories x’. Rebekah claims her comments were not about Coleen
The court previously heard that Coleen said that as part of this ‘sting operation’ she planted three false stories on her private Instagram account, with the viewers restricted to only Rebekah’s account, to see whether they would be leaked to The Sun newspaper.
Asked about this post by Rebekah’s barrister Hugh Tomlinson QC on Monday, Coleen said: ‘I wanted the story to run so I had evidence.’
She added: ‘I felt that would be an extra step if the papers run it, I would have my story and the actual story in the paper.’
Coleen, who is married to former England footballer Wayne Rooney, continued: ‘I didn’t want it out there, I wanted it for my own evidence… It was a story that was out there but it was completely untrue.’
The High Court heard that earlier in August, PR Rachel Monk told Coleen that The Sun were planning to write a story on her visiting Mexico over the treatment.
The post that resulted in a newspaper article headlined ‘Wayne and Coleen Rooney’s £20million ‘Morrisons mansion’ flooded during Storm Lorenzo’. The court heard that the post, only visible to Rebekah’s Instagram account, showed a bottle of wine and was captioned: ‘Needed after today… flood in the basement of our new house… when it all seemed to be going so well’
The footballer’s wife explained she told Ms Monk to tell the newspaper that she ‘can’t get hold of me’.
With The Sun seeking a comment on the story, Coleen told the court: ‘I just said don’t comment… so obviously that means they run it or not, it’s up to them. I didn’t say no, I didn’t say yes.’
The court also heard that in March 2019 Coleen asked Ms Monk to find out who was the source of a story about herself and her husband securing a babysitter, following an approach from The Sun newspaper.
Coleen told the court she had a suspicion it was Rebekah, telling the PR that she was allegedly ‘fame hungry’ from ‘stuff she’s done at the World Cup’.
Rebekah Vardy arrives with her husband Jamie Vardy at the Royal Courts of Justice in London this morning
Hearing the accusation of being ‘fame hungry’, Rebekah, sitting in the front row of Court 13 alongside her solicitors, appeared to shake her head.
Asked why she did not delete Rebekah from her Instagram, Coleen said she did not want to ‘trap’ her, adding: ‘I just wanted to find out who was doing this to me.’
‘I thought by going public on Instagram and saying someone is doing this to me I thought it would stop,’ she said, adding: ‘But it continued.’
Earlier on Monday, Coleen told the High Court she ‘had suspicions’ that Mrs Vardy’s Instagram account was responsible for leaking information to journalists when she unfollowed her on the social media site.
The footballer’s wife accepted it would have been obvious to Rebekah in March 2019 when she texted Coleen that she had been unfollowed.
Coleen Rooney arrives with her husband Wayne Rooney at the Royal Courts of Justice in London for the libel trial this morning
Coleen said the pair were ‘not good friends’ and that if someone had unfollowed her she would ‘probably just forget about it and not message’ the person, adding: ‘I wouldn’t have been that bothered really.’
She said: ‘I felt it was suspicious. Obviously, I had suspicions in other ways, so this just added to the suspicions that I had.’
Coleen is defending the libel claim brought by Mrs Vardy on the basis of truth and public interest.
The libel battle comes after Coleen publicly claimed that an account behind three fake stories in The Sun that she had posted on her personal Instagram account was Rebekah’s.
As well as the ‘gender selection’ post, the fake stories Clooney planted on her Instagram during the sting operation also included her planning to return to TV, and the basement flooding at her home.
In the post on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, 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.’
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