If intrusive wall-to-wall coverage of the lives of footballer’s wives and girlfriends (so-called Wags) was a creation of tabloid newspapers in the 2000s, then the “Wagatha Christie” libel trial acted as a season finale for that particular era of celebrity culture.
The endless WhatsApp messages sent by Rebekah Vardy – in which she discussed how she would love to leak stories to newspapers, tipped off the Sun about the drink-driving arrest of a footballer and talked about relations with paparazzi photographers – came across as not only grubby but dated.
