Coleen Rooney Accuses Rebekah Vardy of Leaking Stories

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Overview

Coleen Rooney vs. Rebekah Vardy refers to allegations made by Coleen Rooney, wife of football star Wayne Rooney, that Rebekah Vardy, wife of football star Jaime Vardy, had been leaking false stories about her to British tabloids. Mrs. Rooney tweeted that she had initiated a sting operation in which she blocked everyone but Rebekah Vardy from viewing her Instagram Stories and then purposefully put false stories there to see if they'd be leaked. When the stories did leak to British tabloid, she concluded that Vardy must have been leaking them. Vardy denied the allegations. Online, Twitter users delighted in Rooney's telling of the tale, particularly her dramatic reveal at the end of her statement, when she wrote, "It's…… Rebekah Vardy's account."

Background

In 2019, The Sun published several sensational stories about Coleen Rooney. These included a story about her traveling to Mexico to look into "gender selection" treatment for her baby,^[1] a story about her basement flooding,^[2] and a story about her looking to get into a British reality TV program.^[3] On October 9th, Rooney^[4] alleged on Twitter that she had purposefully leaked those stories on her Instagram Stories, and blocked everyone but Rebekah Vardy from seeing them in order to prove Vardy was leaking stories about her to the press.

Developments

Vardy immediately denied the allegations, saying she never spoke to journalists about her, and pointed out that it's possible to see stories even from people you don't follow. She said she was hurt she had to deal with the controversy, "especially" because she's "heavily pregnant."^[5]

Meanwhile, Twitter users eagerly commented on the drama, and particularly of the way Rooney told her story. Twitter user @vonstrenginho tweeted a video dramatizing the reading of Rooney's post, gaining over 4,400 retweets and 18,000 likes (shown below, top). User @DavidMackau did the same, gaining over 50 retweets and 400 likes (shown below, bottom).

The Wikipedia page for Coleen Rooney was briefly changed to reference the drama^[6] (shown below, left). Twitter user @TomC_22 tweeted that they just loved the ongoing drama (shown below, right). The drama was widely covered by publications including Huffington Post^[7] and Twitter Events.^[8]