Coleen Rooney will soon be gracing our screens to tell her version of events of the famous "Wagatha" story in a three-part documentary called Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story.
Back in 2019, the wife of Wayne Rooney made headlines after her tweet - aimed at Rebekah Vardy's account - went viral before she was swiftly dubbed "Wagatha Christie".
© Disney+On Friday, Disney+ announced that the highly-anticipated original documentary, made by Dorothy Street Pictures, will premiere on Wednesday 18 October. The series looks at the jaw-dropping libel case that gripped the nation in 2022.
The incredible story will be told through exclusive access to the woman at the heart of it all, Coleen, who finally speaks alongside interviews with her family, legal team and key players involved in the resulting trial.
Uncovering one of the biggest tabloid news stories in Britain for the last decade, it reveals how Coleen turned amateur online sleuth to find an explanation for why private stories concerning herself and her family continued to appear in the media.
© Disney+The three-part programme will examine the circumstances that led to her infamous Instagram post that broke the internet all the way to Coleen successfully defending herself in one of the UK's highest-profile High Court defamation cases of recent years.
As well as the case itself, it will explore how Coleen has had her life played out in public for the last 20 years. We know her as one of Britain's most famous celebrities and wife of England's record-scoring footballer Wayne Rooney.
Ahead of the launch, Coleen spoke with Vogue Magazine about the trial for the first. "It was so weird that first day, actually sitting on a bench together," she said, talking about coming face-to-face with Rebekah in court.
"It was so difficult in that courtroom, [...] especially watching her on the stand. It was quite painful. I felt uneasy." She later explained: "I'm a forgive-and-forget person, I can't be bothered with things going on and on," adding: "But this is obviously totally different."
The libel case originally began after Coleen published a tweet in October 2019, accusing Rebekah of leaking private information to The Sun. Explaining that after "a few years" she had realised that someone following her private Instagram account had been sharing "so much information," about her life, Coleen revealed that she had devised a plan to work out who was responsible.
"To try and prove this, I came up with an idea," she wrote. "I blocked everyone from viewing my stories except ONE account."
Recalling how she had shared fake stories to see if they appeared in The Sun, Coleen then concluded: "I have saved and screenshotted all the original stories which clearly show just one person has viewed them. It's………….Rebekah Vardy's account."
Resulting in a full denial from Rebekah, the wife of Jamie Vardy then escalated the case to the High Court of Justice, announcing that she was suing Coleen for defamation.
© Future PublishingHowever, in July 2022, Rebekah lost her libel case after the judge – Mrs Justice Steyn – found that she was "directing Ms Watt to the private Instagram account, sending her screenshots of Mrs Rooney's posts, drawing attention to items of potential interest to the press, and answering additional queries raised by the press via Ms Watt".
"Ms Watt" refers to Rebekah's agent at the time, Caroline Watt, who was believed to have acted as a go-between for Rebekah and The Sun.
The judge's statement also added: "In my judgement, it is likely that Ms Vardy deliberately deleted her WhatsApp chat with Ms Watt, and that Ms Watt deliberately dropped her phone in the sea."
Concluding, the judge explained: "I have found that Ms Vardy and Ms Watt have deliberately deleted or destroyed evidence."
