You remember the whole Rebekah Vardy/Coleen Rooney kerfuffle, right? It was one of the most-talked-about tabloid stories of 2019. So big, in fact, that when the news broke in October it was attracting more Google searches than Brexit.
Here’s the gist: Rooney, an author/TV personality and wife of former England captain Wayne Rooney, set an elaborate social media trap to flush out the source of tabloid leaks about her private life.
“I blocked everyone from viewing my Instagram stories except ONE account,” she wrote in a now-infamous Twitter statement. “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!”
The source? [Pause for effect]
“It’s… Rebekah Vardy’s account.”
Vardy previously told The Daily Mail that she suspected someone else may have used her account to provide the leaks. She said she has given her Instagram login details to several people who help manage her public profile, and vowed to find the “mole” responsible.
“Over the last few years, quite a few people have had access to my Instagram account, including a PR agency and an advertising agency. And, yes, I have given my password out. It is considered a normal thing to do and I never thought very hard about it,” she said.
Vardy also shared that she phoned Rooney shortly after the allegations were posted to social media.
“I said to her ‘Coleen, what on earth have you done?’” Rebekah told the publication. “It was not an easy phone call.
“She said to me: ‘I’m not pointing the finger’ and I said, ‘You have just annihilated me in public and hung me out to dry. The whole world hates me!’”
Featured image: Getty and ITV.