Rebekah Vardy and Coleen Rooney are set to take the so-called “Wagatha Christie” case back to court for a further hearing over costs.
The libel case gained global attention after Mrs Rooney - married to football star Wayne Rooney - revealed to the world on Instagram that she believed fellow WAG Mrs Vardy was leaking private information about her to the press.
In July 2022, Mrs Vardy, 42, lost her high-profile libel claim against Mrs Rooney, 38, when the court ruled the viral social media post “substantially true”.
In an order from October the same year, the judge ruled that Mrs Vardy should pay 90 percent of Mrs Rooney’s costs and was ordered to pay £800,000 of the bill that November.
However, this was not Mrs Rooney’s final total costs bill and the case is set to return to the High Court in London for a hearing before a specialist costs judge.
Mrs Rooney, the wife of former Manchester United star Wayne Rooney, incurred total costs of more than £2 million but £350,000 of those had been racked up before the trial in May.
In the viral social media post in October 2019 at the heart of the libel claim, Mrs Rooney said she had carried out a months-long “sting operation” to discover who had been leaking information to the press.
Ms Rooney says she spent five months attempting to work out who was sharing information about her and her family based on posts she had made on her personal social media page.
After sharing a series of “false” stories and using a process of elimination, Ms Rooney claims they were viewed by one Instagram account, belonging to Mrs Vardy.
Mrs Rooney publicly claimed Mrs Vardy’s account was the source behind three stories in The Sun newspaper featuring fake details she had posted on her private Instagram profile – featuring her travelling to Mexico for a “gender selection” procedure, her planning to return to TV, and the basement flooding at her home.
Ms Vardy, then pregnant with her fifth child, denied the allegations and said various people had access to her Instagram over the years.
She claimed to be “so upset” by Ms Rooney’s accusation, later adding: “I thought she was my friend but she completely annihilated me.”
The public dispute makes headlines around the world, with the hashtag #WagathaChristie trending.
Following the high-profile trial, Mrs Justice Steyn ruled in Mrs Rooney’s favour, finding it was “likely” that Mrs Vardy’s former agent Caroline Watt had passed information to The Sun and that she “knew of and condoned this behaviour”.
Mrs Rooney incurred total costs of more than £2 million but £350,000 of those had been racked up before the trial in May. This was not her final costs bill however and the pair will return to court next week.
A specialist costs judge will now assess the costs and expenses incurred during the civil case and rule on how much successful parties can recover, and can reduce the costs if needed or if they are deemed to be unreasonable.
The hearing on Tuesday before Senior Costs Judge Andrew Gordon-Saker is due to begin at 10.30am.
