Rebekah Vardy speaks out after agreeing to pay £1.2million Wagatha court costs

Daily Mirror

08-05-2025

Rebekah Vardy has taken to social media after it emerged that the TV star had agreed to pay almost £1.2million in legal fees after she attempted to sue Coleen Rooney
Rebekah Vardy has broken her silence after she agreed to pay £1.2million in legal costs following the Wagatha Christie trial. The former I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! star had attempted to sue Rooney following her now-infamous social media post in 2019.
Coleen had taken to social media to reveal she had completed a sting operation after several of her private social media posts had been leaked to the media. The 39-year-old had narrowed down the accounts which had access to her private account, blocking several to discover who could have been responsible.
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In 2019, she took to Instagram and X to reveal: "It was...... Rebekah Vardy's account." False stories Coleen planted included eyeing up a stint on Strictly Come Dancing as well as travelling to Mexico for baby gender selection. Rebekah, 43, has strongly denied the allegations and claims that her account had been hacked.
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Jamie Vardy's wife later launched a defamation case against the Liverpudlian for her social media post, claiming it had defamed her. Earlier this week, a hearing a The Royal Courts of Justice heard that the star must pay almost £1.2million of Coleen's costs after she lost her defamation case.
Now, Rebekah has taken to social media to reveal she's jetting out of the UK. In view of her 381,000 followers, she shared a snap of a Ryanair Boeing 737 sitting on the tarmac at an airport. Captioning her upload, Rebekah penned: "Love an early morning flight," along with a rather disgruntled emoji.
It comes just hours after Coleen took to social media to explain that the ruling, which neither she nor Rebekah attended, had been a "relief" for her. The WAG penned: "The ruling yesterday in my favour finally brings this claim to an end, it's a relief and brings closure for my family and I."
Coleen continued: "Throughout this long process, I am grateful that judgements have consistently gone my way. However, as I have always maintained, this claim did not need to be made or run for as long as it did. The time and money should have been put to better use.
"I want to thank my legal representatives, management, friends and family for their guidance and constant support. Thanks also to the public and many well-wishers who have been in touch with such kind messages. This episode is not something that I ever wanted in my life. However, I am thankful for the way my family and team have dealt with it. We look forward to moving on with our lives."
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A specialist costs court has previously been told that Coleen, the wife of former England striker Wayne, ran up a legal bill totalling more than £1.8 million after she successfully defended Vardy's High Court claim in 2022. In written submissions for a hearing on Tuesday, Mrs Vardy's barrister, Juliet Wells, said that Mrs Rooney's total legal bill of £1,833,906.89 "has now been settled at £1,190,000, being c.£1,125,000 plus interest of c.£65.000".
Ms Wells continued that Mrs Rooney is now claiming "assessment costs" of more than £300,000, which she described as "grossly disproportionate" and should be capped at "no more than £100,000". The full amount of the assessment costs will be determined at the hearing before Costs Judge Mark Whalan, who said he was "pleased" that the two sides had come to a "commercial accommodation".
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At a preliminary High Court hearing on November 19, 2020, Mr Justice Warby found that Coleen had used defamatory words about Rebekah. On July 29, 2022, Mrs Justice Steyn ruled in favour of Coleen and said that Vardy had passed information about Coleen to the media. Rebekah had initially faced legal costs of approximately £3 million and had been ordered to pay 90 percent of Coleen's costs.
In October last year, Rebekah's barristers claimed to a judge in a hearing that Coleen and her legal representatives had committed "serious misconduct" by understating some of her costs in order to "attack the other party's costs." A judge ruled that no misconduct had been committed.
Rebekah later decided to appeal the decision, with Coleen's legal team opposing the appeal and describing it as "misconceived." In April, Mr Justice Cavanagh dismissed the appeal. He said: "The appeal must fail on the basis that the judge was entitled to reach the conclusion that he came to."