REBEKAH Vardy will “never forgive” Coleen Rooney after she “ruined” the last weeks of her pregnancy by accusing her of leaking private information to the press, the Royal Courts of Justice have been told.
In a written statement prepared for the two women’s libel battle, Mrs Vardy alleged that she had been made a “scapegoat” by Mrs Rooney and her PR advisers for past “leaked” stories about the state of her marriage to former England footballer Wayne Rooney.
The mother-of-five said she “never provided any information about the contents of Coleen’s private Instagram account to The Sun”.
She said it came as a “great shock” to be accused of leaking information by Mrs Rooney in a social media post in October 2019, a time when Mrs Vardy was seven months pregnant with her youngest daughter.
“I started to get really hot and suffered from strange palpitations,” she said, adding that she was left “shaking” and “hyperventilating”.
Mrs Vardy added: “The impact of Coleen’s allegation on me and my family has been traumatic.
“I was genuinely scared that I might lose my baby as a result of the stress I was under in the days and weeks after the post.
“We will never get that time back.
“She was well aware by then that I denied the allegations and that I was suffering horrendous abuse, but she did nothing to stop it.
“I feared that my children would be bullied and that my family would be targeted.”
Mrs Vardy said in her statement that “within minutes” of Mrs Rooney making her allegations there “was a torrent of insults calling me a snake, a grass and a rat”.
“I received threats, and death threats, including to my unborn baby,” she added.
“It was totally horrifying and made me feel really frightened.”
Since Mrs Rooney’s accusatory post had “gone viral”, Mrs Vardy said there had been repetition of variations of her “reveal” of “It’s………. Rebekah Vardy’s account.”
“The most upsetting instance of this was social media commentary on the police announcement that a suspect had been identified in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann,” Mrs Vardy said in her statement.
“Many users of Twitter published jokes that it was my account.”
Mrs Vardy claimed there had been “derogatory chants” of “your wife is a grass” when her husband, Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy, plays.
“It makes me feel very anxious and upset to the extent where I do not want to take the children to matches to see their father playing.
“Inevitably a huge crowd chanting slurs about their mum confuses and upsets my children,” she said, adding that her older children had been bullied at school “to the point where they have been scared to go in”.
Mrs Vardy said she now finds it “really difficult to trust people”, had experienced “severe panic attacks” and was admitted to hospital three times in the aftermath of Mrs Rooney’s post.
She alleged that Mrs Rooney posted her claims to cause her “maximum damage”.
Mrs Rooney allegedly told her “that she wanted to make me feel paranoid the way she had felt paranoid” in a phone call between the two footballers’ wives on the day the accusations were posted, Mrs Vardy said.
“I still remember her tone on that telephone call really vividly.
“It was extremely calculated and cold and she showed no remorse even though I was very upset.
“I found it very chilling and quite menacing,” Mrs Vardy said.
She later alleged in her statement: “I think that Coleen, and her PR advisers, have made me a scapegoat for past ‘leaked’ stories that have been published about her and Wayne and the state of their marriage.
“There have been large numbers of these stories which I assume have come from their own close circle.
“Rather than dealing with this they have attacked me.
“I believe that they have, in part, done this as a way of trying to change the narrative in the press about Coleen being a doormat following her husband’s drink-driving charge and the multiple allegations of cheating.”
Mrs Vardy concluded her statement: “I will never forgive the way in which Coleen ruined my last weeks of pregnancy and the suffering she has caused to my children and my family but I hope that this claim will mean that the whole world will know that I did not betray Coleen’s trust.”
