Oscar Wilde, Barbra Streisand, and now – Rebekah Vardy. When the news came out that Vardy's libel case against Coleen Rooney had been thrown out, she joined a long list of famous people who have gone to court for stupid reasons and hurt themselves. Like Wilde, who sued the Marquess of Queensberry for revealing that he was gay, Vardy went to court to deny something that anyone could see was true: that she had told private stories about Rooney to the press. She thought that going to court was the best way to control her image, just like Barbra Streisand did when she sued a website for showing a picture of her house and drawing the world's attention to it. She was mistaken
Vardy shared private information about her husband's coworkers and their wives in order to get good press coverage. And because of that, Mrs. Justice Steyn gave a verdict that was even worse for Rooney's reputation than what Vardy said about her to a Daily Mail reporter: "Arguing with Coleen Rooney would be like arguing with a pigeon: you can tell it it's wrong, but it will still poop in your hair." Well, Rebekah, you're all dirty now.
Every day of the trial, I sat right next to Vardy, and it was clear that she deserved to lose this case. But sometimes it wasn't clear that she would. Rooney took a big chance when she publicly accused Vardy, or more specifically "It's.........Rebekah Vardy's account," of leaking stories about her to the tabloids. Under English law, the person who made the defamatory claim has to prove it. She took an even bigger risk when she didn't back down even after Mr. Justice Warby said in November 2020 that Rooney would have to prove that Vardy herself was the source of the leaks, not just someone who had access to Vardy's account.
But from the first day of the trial, Rooney, who sat with her husband Wayne every day, seemed calm and sure, like a holy figure in a painting by Vermeer, waiting for God's blessing. Vardy, on the other hand, was more like a character from the TV show Dynasty. She cried hysterically and fell over in the witness box as Rooney's lawyer, David Sherborne, read out her own words from WhatsApp messages and tabloid interviews that contradicted Vardy's claims.
Did she tell any secrets? She did not do that. So why did she send her agent Caroline Watt a WhatsApp message saying, "Leak the story about her hooking up with G behind H's back?" Did she agree with sharing private information about other people? She did not do that. So why did she do a kiss and tell about Peter Andre in 2004 in which she said he was "hung like a chipolata"?
And this is what we saw as proof. So much we did not. Watt's phone, which somehow ended up at the bottom of the North Sea, and endless WhatsApp messages on Vardy and her husband Jamie's phones, which mysteriously disappeared, should be talked about alongside the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the Colossus of Rhodes as mythical works of art that were tragically lost to humanity.
Justice Steyn came to the conclusion that their disappearance was "not accidental" and that it was "likely that Ms. Vardy deleted her WhatsApp chat with Ms. Watt on purpose and that Ms. Watt dropped her phone on purpose into the sea." Vardy probably isn't "buzzing," to use one of her favorite phrases, about the judge's decision, but she can take comfort in the fact that the judge didn't agree with her lawyer's claim that she had to be "very clever or very cynical" to delete her WhatsApp messages. In other words, she wasn't smart enough to get rid of her own messages. Becky, it's better to be too cynical than too stupid.
And it is clear that Justice Steyn thinks Vardy was very cynical. At the trial, Vardy tried to throw Watt into the North Sea (but probably not to get her phone back) by saying that if Watt did leak stories to the Sun, she did so without his knowledge, consent, or approval. Justice Steyn just writes, "I disagree with that claim." I wonder why she thought that. Oh, maybe the different messages Vardy sent to Watt that said "leak it" and "I want to be paid for this."
"The Flooded Basement Post," "The Soho House Posts," and "Ms. Rooney's Decision to Remove Ms. Vardy as a Follower" are all part of the index for Justice Steyn's decision. This is what the £3 million trial was really about: whether someone told people that Rooney's basement flooded and other newsworthy things, and Vardy being upset that Rooney took her off his Instagram. Justice Steyn said that the fight between the two women "can fairly be called trivial, but it doesn't have to be important to feel the sting of libel... The main point of slander has been proven to be true.
Vardy has been seriously hurt. Maybe, to paraphrase and honor her famous words about pigeons, we can now call the rare but possible act of shitting in your own hair "The Vardy effect."
What about Rooney? Since her husband scored a hat-trick in his first game at Old Trafford, no Rooney has scored so well. Her Wagatha sleuthing may have shown that she was smarter than she thought, but it was her strength during the trial that really stood out. She didn't even flinch when they talked about her husband's repeated affairs, and she didn't stumble when they asked her questions. Instead, she acted like a person who has the courage of her convictions, which are that you don't mess with Coleen or her family. Vardy, on the other hand, couldn't even look at Rooney, and it seems like the only thing she's sure of is that she wants the most shallow kind of fame. Well, she finally gets it.
