Rebekah Vardy has finally agreed to pay Coleen Rooney a huge seven-figure sum almost three years after she lost their Wagatha Christie courtroom showdown.
Rebekah, 42, was ordered to pay 90 percent of Coleen’s legal bills after she sensationally lost the libel case which accused her of leaking stories about Wayne Rooney’s wife to the press.
Today it was revealed she has agreed to pay almost £1.2million of Coleen’s legal costs.Â
It could see an end to the feud which began in 2019 when Coleen wrote a public letter on social media revealing Jamie Vardy’s wife had been selling stories about her from posts made on a private Instagram account which only a few close friends were privy to.
And whilst the legal battle might have ended, it is still playing out in the court of public opinion with Coleen’s Disney+ documentary The Real Wagatha Story, Rebekah’s Talk TV interview, a Channel 4 courtroom drama and even a stage show.
Rebekah has made many attempts in the past to bring down the sum she is expected to pay for Coleen’s legal costs which were set at £1,833,906.89.
She previously appealed the amount she must pay back and accused Coleen’s team of ‘serious misconduct’.
But her bid was dismissed by Mr Justice Cavanagh last month after he found the previous judge had ‘ample material’ to reach his decision.
Rebekah’s lawyer had argued Coleen’s team had used a ‘kitchen sink’ approach when calculating the total and included ‘over £120,000 of costs to which Mrs Rooney has no entitlement’.
He also claimed the bill included costs for one of the wag’s team to stay at Nobu – a five star luxury hotel – and ‘substantial dinner and drinks charges as well as mini bar charges’.
The lawyer said Coleen’s £1,833,906.89 legal bill was over three times her ‘agreed costs budget of £540,779.07’.
But Coleen’s lawyer, Robin Dunne, argued it was ‘frankly outrageous’ to accuse them of dishonesty.
Rebekah’s barrister, Juliet Wells, said in written submissions that Coleen’s total legal bill ‘has now been settled at £1,190,000’ – £1,125,000 plus interest of £65.000.
But the WAGS are still at war after Coleen claimed for ‘assessment costs’ of more than £300,000 – which Ms Wells branded as ‘grossly disproportionate’ and said it should be capped at ‘no more than £100,000’.
Rebekah brought the multi-million pound case to London’s High Court after she was accused of leaking stories about the former I’m A Celeb star to the media.
However, Coleen won the sensational libel battle in July 2022, leaving Rebekah’s reputation and finances in tatters.
The catalyst for the famous Wagatha Christie case was a dramatic open letter written by Coleen and posted on social media in October 2019Â in which she revealed she had turned detective to figure out who had been leaking the stories.
She had a ‘suspicion’ of who it could be, and ‘to try and prove this’ she ‘came up with an idea’.
‘I blocked everyone from viewing my Instagram stories except ONE account,’ she wrote.
For the next five months, she uploaded ‘a series of false stories’ to see if ‘they made their way’ into the press.
‘And you know what, they did!’ she penned ‘The story about gender selection in Mexico, the story about returning to TV and then the latest story about the basement flooding in my new house.’
She continued to build suspense, writing: ‘It’s been tough keeping it to myself and not making any comment at all, especially when the stories have been leaked, however I had to. Now I know for certain which account/individual it’s come from.
‘I have saved and screenshotted all the original stories which clearly show just one person had viewed them.’
And then, she delivered her final iconic line: ‘It’s………. Rebekah Vardy’s account.’Â
What followed was a tearful appearance from Rebekah on ITV’s Loose Women in February 2020 in which claimed the stress over the dispute had caused her to have anxiety attacks so severe she ‘ended up in hospital three times’.
The emotional display was met by Coleen with a statement to say she did not want to ‘engage in further public debate’ on the matter.
Four months later, in June 2020, Rebekah began legal proceedings against Coleen for libel with her lawyers alleging she had ‘suffered extreme distress, hurt, anxiety and embarrassment as a result of the publication of the post and the events which followed’.
At the first preliminary hearing in London’s High Court in November the same year, Mr Justice Warby ruled that Coleen’s famous letter ‘clearly identified’ Rebekah as being ‘guilty of the serious and consistent breach of trust’.
He concluded the ‘natural and ordinary’ meaning of the posts was that Rebekah had ‘regularly and frequently abused her status as a trusted follower of Mrs Rooney’s personal Instagram account’ by secretly informing the press of Coleen’s ‘private posts and stories’.Â
When the case returned to the courts in February 2022, a series of explosive messages between Rebekah and her agent Caroline Watt were revealed with Coleen’s lawyers alleging they were about her.
Rebekah denied that one message calling someone a ‘nasty b****’ was in reference to Coleen.
When asked by defence lawyers to present Ms Watt’s phone so they could further investigate the WhatsApp messages, they were told it had fallen into the North Sea when Ms Watt was on a boat during a holiday.
Coleen was denied permission to bring a High Court claim against Ms Watt for misuse of private information to be heard alongside the libel battle as it was brought too late.
Ms Watt was then dubbed not fit to give oral evidence, revoked permission for her witness statement to be used and withdrew her waiver which would have allowed journalists to say whether she was a source of the leaked stories.
Coleen’s barrister then told the High Court Rebekah ‘appears to accept’ her agent was the source of the leaked stories and argued her new statement suggested this but Rebekah claimed she ‘did not authorise or condone her’.
In May 2022, the women finally came face-to-face in court to give evidence as the Wagatha Christie trial began in the Royal Courts of Justice in London.
Coleen secured her victory the next month when Mrs Justice Steyn delivered her verdict, dismissing the claim made by Rebekah and finding Coleen had proved the meaning of her famous accusatory letter was ‘substantially true’.
Whilst Coleen said she was ‘pleased’ the judge had ruled in her favour, Rebekah declared she was ‘extremely sad and disappointed’ at the decision.
MailOnline has reached out to representatives for Rebekah Vardy and Coleen Rooney for comment.
