An explosive row erupted yesterday between two footballers’ wives, as Coleen Rooney claimed that someone using the Instagram account of Jamie Vardy’s wife Rebekah had leaked stories about her to a tabloid newspaper.
The allegation and the fevered reaction created “the best day on Twitter of all time”, says The Guardian.
Here is how it played out and what might happen next.
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The drama began yesterday morning when Wayne Rooney’s other half tweeted a message accusing Vardy, wife of the Leicester and England footballer Jamie, of leaking stories from her private Instagram account to The Sun.
“This has been a burden in my life for a few years now and finally I have got to the bottom of it,” she began, before explaining that someone who followed her on the picture-sharing app was sharing details with the newspaper.
Rooney said she had a suspicion as to who the culprit was and decided to block every other account from her stories. Then, over a period of months, she posted false stories on Instagram to see if the sole viewer still shared them with The Sun.
“And you know what, they did!” she continued. Then, with a literary flourish, she dramatically revealed the culprit, writing: “It’s………..Rebekah Vardy’s account.”
How did people react?
As Twitter erupted with excitement over the drama, Vardy posted a reply. She denied she was the culprit and said she wished Rooney had spoken to her directly about her suspicion, rather than making it public on Twitter.
“Over the years various people have had access to my Insta and just this week I found I was following people I didn’t know or have never followed myself,” she said.
“I’m not being funny but I don’t need the money, what would I gain from selling stories on you?”
She added: “I’m disgusted that I’m even having to deny this. You should’ve called me the first time it happened.”
Later, posting on Instagram, Vardy added that she is “having to take legal advice” over the matter.
The Sun newspaper made no comment but it removed one of the three stories Rooney mentioned.
There was plenty of comment and humour online as tweeters lined up to make fun of the drama. Coleen was dubbed “Wagatha Christie” and much hilarity ensued.
The story has also dominated the mainstream media with even The New York Times running three separate stories, one of which described the “love, tragedy, deception and, of course, power” of the tale. USA Today said the incident was “one of the great soccer stories of recent memory”.
Do the pair have history?
The Daily Mail says that Wayne Rooney warned his England teammate Jamie Vardy about his wife Rebekah’s behaviour during the Euro 2016 tournament. It is claimed that Rooney held “private talks” with Vardy, allegedly telling him to ensure Rebekah didn’t distract the team’s campaign with her social media posts.
What will happen next?
The BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme was first to reveal that Vardy has instructed lawyers to perform a “forensic investigation” on her Instagram account to see who has had access to it and when.
In a reminder that online drama can bring out the worst in people, Vardy has shared some of the abuse she has received since Rooney’s explosive tweet. One message read: “F**k you sly c**t I hope that baby dies you b***h.”
Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.
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