When Coleen Rooney became suspicious that a follower on her private Instagram account was leaking stories to The Sun newspaper, her husband Wayne offered some advice. “I said to Coleen ‘Just delete it. Social media’s not something you necessarily need’. She said no, so…” the former England ace says, trailing off. He bears the sheepish smile of a man who realises, belatedly, he might have said something a bit silly. “And that’s the way she is.”
Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story shows us exactly what Wayne means. This appointment-viewing three-part documentary, airing on Disney Plus today, is the first time Coleen has spoken at length about the surreal, multimillion-pound libel trial triggered by her now infamous “It’s…….. Rebekah Vardy’s account” post, accusing her fellow “wag” of being behind the infringements. We meet a straight-talking, unpretentious woman; someone who is deeply moral and relentless in her determination to do what she believes is right. This, it turns out, is the way she is.
If you care about Wagatha Christie – and I’m suspicious of anyone who says they don’t – the series will give you everything you want and need: drama, insight, gossip, recriminations. It’s obscenely entertaining – after all, the story gripped the nation because, with its divinely paced plot beats, surreal twists, and dogged detective at its heart, it was a simply irresistible yarn. But, with the breathless giddiness of the trial over – Vardy dramatically lost the case last July – it also offers the chance to consider Coleen’s crusade from a calmer, more human perspective.
A dignified interviewee, Coleen tells us she didn’t find it funny. Away from the circus, it’s easy to see why. As she endured a marital crisis, rocked by another of Wayne’s transgressions (he had been arrested for drink-driving, in the car of a woman he’d met on a night out), she was waking up to find private photos published in The Sun, knowing only that they must have been passed on by someone she had considered trustworthy. (Later, with quiet fury, she explains how she eliminated several candidates purely by the fact no one from Liverpool would leak stories to The Sun.)
The documentary reminds us that the paparazzi have stalked Coleen since she was 16 – she was wearing school uniform in the first picture they nabbed of her – so she was accustomed to violations. This was different; an intimate betrayal, the breaking of a social contract. Piers Morgan appears as an interviewee, suggesting Coleen should not have had an “expectation of privacy” if she was posting to 300 people. But it’s this kind of merciless, entitled, unethical mindset that Coleen clearly felt she should no longer have to put up with. While homesick in the US, as Wayne played for MLS side D.C. United, Coleen describes what a lifeline her private account had been – it seems callous to begrudge her that.
Of course, the trial was about proving whether Coleen’s accusation of leaking was substantially true, not whether it’s right or wrong to pretend to be someone’s pal so you can leak stories about them to papers – on that, people can make their own minds up. Unsurprisingly, Vardy comes across as deeply unsympathetic – at one point, texts to her agent Caroline Watt that were shared at the trial revealed that she had considered mentioning Coleen’s late sister Rosie, who died of Rett Syndrome at 14, as a way to inveigle her way back into her confidence.
“Jamie Vardy, your wife is a grass,” fans chanted at the Leicester striker, and Coleen makes clear she did not approve of the trolling. Nor did she understand why the case ever had to go so far. But she was unwilling to settle, something that would have required her to make a statement apologising to Vardy and saying her post had been untrue. The case had consequences for Coleen too, we discover – she and Wayne drove down to London together for the trial in silence, her mental health destroyed, her life consumed by the case.
Wayne, despite the hovering subject of his husbandly indiscretions (no wonder he’s had a vasectomy), fares better than you’d expect – apparently so gripped by the latter stages of the trial that he began suggesting legal arguments to lawyers. Unlike the coy, calculated not-quite-admissions from the Beckhams in Netflix’s recent documentary, he and Coleen talk fairly matter of factly about his occasional uselessness. (“I love him, but sometimes I don’t like him,” Coleen’s mum admits, casually damning.) Of course, though, this is Coleen’s triumph. From the minute we see her driving around the streets of Cheshire like a regular DCI Jane Tennison, joking about tricking paps, her shrewd, underestimated ability to be one step ahead suggests you’d be a fool to cross her.
Director Lucy Bowden perfects the balance between the camp elements to this tale – it’s all soundtracked like a Poirot Christmas special – while never losing sight of the fundamental cruelty at its heart. We’ve had a Channel 4 drama based on Wagatha and a West End play – but this documentary finally bucks the trend of recent news stories being reheated and repackaged to endlessly diminishing returns. When it comes to this story in particular, accept no imitations – it’s only Coleen you want to hear it from.
