Everything you (don’t) need to know about the Wagatha Christie trial
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 25 May 2022
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What happened when, after two years of mudslinging, Rebekah Vardy and Coleen Rooney, the wives of two top footballers, met in court over allegations one had been leaking details of the other’s private life?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Two years ago, the country issued a collective gasp, as the wife of a former England football |
| 0:17.9 | captain, Colleen Rooney, posted on social media that she'd unmasked the person who'd |
| 0:24.6 | been leaking stories about her to the press. |
| 0:27.4 | And she finished her post saying, now I know for certain which account it's come from. |
| 0:31.5 | It's Rebecca Vardy's account. |
| 0:36.6 | It didn't matter if you followed football, or if you knew any of the stories that had been |
| 0:41.3 | leaked. The sting operation behind the big reveal was so breathtakingly well-plotted that |
| 0:48.3 | an instant legend was born, bringing together, for the first time, two very English obsessions. |
| 0:55.7 | The cult of the footballers' wives, and the genius of Agatha Christie. |
| 1:01.9 | It is a modern day who'd done it, poro for the Instagram age. |
| 1:06.0 | The so-called Wagatha Christie trial is due to get earned away later. |
| 1:10.2 | In October 2019, Colleen Rooney earned the nickname Wagatha Christie. |
| 1:14.3 | We now know this is how Wagatha Christie'd done it, a fake Instagram post. |
| 1:18.8 | Only then did Colleen reveal that the one account she'd allowed to read them was Rebecca |
| 1:23.4 | Vardy's. Within the hour, the phrase Wagatha Christie had been created. |
| 1:32.2 | Delighted by the intrigue, people across the country took to social media to wade in on |
| 1:39.0 | Wagatha Christie. But for Rebecca Vardy, who's always denied leaking any private information, |
| 1:45.8 | life had taken a darker turn. |
| 1:49.3 | Attempts to settle the matter through mediation failed and Rebecca Vardy decided to take Colleen |
| 1:54.6 | Rooney to the high court and sue her for libel. |
| 1:58.0 | So what happened when the two women finally met in court? |
| 2:06.9 | You're listening to stories of our times from the Times and the Sunday Times. |
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