Rebekah Vardy shared a cryptic message on Instagram, as she returned to social media following her high-profile libel trial against Coleen Rooney.
On Friday (29 July) a high court judge ruled against Vardy, finding that it was “likely” that her agent at the time, Caroline Watt, “undertook the direct act” of passing information to The Sun newspaper.
Vardy, the wife of Leicester City striker Jamie, sued Rooney for defamation after she publicly accused her of leaking “false stories” about her to the tabloid press.
In a statement following the ruling, Rooney, wife of ex-footballer Wayne, said she was “pleased” with the outcome. “Although I bear Mrs Vardy no ill-will, today’s judgment makes clear that I was right in what I said in my posts of October 2019,” she said.
On Sunday (31 July) Vardy returned to social media for the first time after the ruling. She a photograph of herself with her back turned to the camera, throwing up a peace sign.
“Peace out,” she captioned the post, adding a peace sign emoji.
In the photograph, she is seen wearing a leather jacket with the words “normal is boring” written in bold pink letters.
In a statement following the court ruling, Vardy said she was “extremely sad and disappointed” by the judge’s decision.
‘It is not the result that I had expected, nor believe was just. I brought this action to vindicate my reputation and am devastated by the judge’s finding.’
“The judge accepted that publication of Coleen’s post was not in the ‘public interest’ and she also rejected her claim that I was the ‘Secret Wag’.
“But as for the rest of her judgement, she got it wrong and this is something I cannot accept.”
In October 2019, Rooney published a tweet that implied that Vardy had been sharing posts from her private Instagram account with The Sun.
Rooney said she had grown suspiscious that someone whom she “trusted” had been behind the leaks.
In a bid to catch out who was sharing the information, the social media sleuth had restricted access to who could see posts to her private Instagram Story.
“After a long time of trying to figure out who it could be, for various reasons, I had a suspicion. To try and prove this, I came up with an idea,” she explained.
“Over the past five months I have posted a series of false stories to see if they made their way into The Sun newspaper. And you know what, they did!”
She alleged: “Now I know for certain which account / individual it’s come from. I have saved and screenshotted all the original stories which clearly show just one person has viewed them. It’s ..........Rebekah Vardy’s account.”
The post went viral and the moment became known as “Wagatha Christie” for Rooney’s investigative methods.
Vardy denied the allegations in a post to her own Twitter account and said that she “never” speaks to journalists about Rooney.
