Rebekah Vardy was reduced to tears on the witness stand after admitting that she knew her agent had passed stories about Coleen Rooney to a tabloid.
On a bruising day of evidence in the High Court, Mrs Vardy twice broke down and proceedings had to be paused while she composed herself. Mrs Rooney and her husband, Wayne, looked on as Mrs Vardy wept.
Mrs Vardy is suing Mrs Rooney over claims that she was responsible for leaking stories from Mrs Rooney’s private Instagram account.
Mrs Rooney posted on social media that she had been betrayed by someone she trusted. The court heard that Mrs Vardy received a message from her agent, Caroline Watt, that read: "It wasn’t someone she trusted. It was me," followed by a laughter emoji.
David Sherborne, for Mrs Rooney, challenged Mrs Vardy over the message and asked why she had not picked up on the admission. Mrs Vardy replied that she had been distracted by the reality contestant Gemma Collins "face-planting" in an episode of ITV’s Dancing On Ice.
Mr Sherborne told her: "Caroline Watt was the source and ultimately it came from you, except you didn’t want to do the dirty work yourself."
He added: "I have to put it to you that it's not her that betrayed you, as you suggest, it's you that betrayed her by throwing her under the bus."
He accused Mrs Vardy of suffering from "selective amnesia", and said: "If it looks like a leak and it sounds like a leak… it’s more likely than not a leak."
'Driven to suicidal thoughts'
Ms Watt is too "fragile" to give evidence in person, the court heard. Mrs Vardy ended her evidence by claiming that her agent had been "driven to suicidal thoughts by these proceedings and the antics of the defendant".
Mrs Rooney’s detective work involved placing two false stories on her Instagram page, which only Mrs Vardy could see. One involved a flooded basement at the family home, while in the other she claimed to be flying abroad to investigate gender selection for her fifth child.
Both stories appeared in The Sun. The court heard that an earlier Instagram post, about Mrs Rooney crashing the family car in Washington DC, also ended up in the newspaper.
Details from WhatsApp messages showed that Ms Watt had viewed the car crash post via Mrs Vardy’s account and passed details on to the newspaper. Mrs Vardy conceded that she was aware of this but thought the information was already in the public domain.
"I didn’t think she was passing on any new information," she said.
Other WhatsApp messages were lost when Ms Watt’s phone fell over the side of a boat while filming the coast of Scotland, the court heard.
This led to a moment of confusion in court when Mr Sherborne said the phone was lying "at the bottom of the sea in Davy Jones’s locker".
"Who is Davy Jones?" asked Mrs Vardy.
'That would be like arguing with a pigeon'
There was stifled laughter in court when the defence brought up an interview which Mrs Vardy gave about the case in 2019, in which she was asked whether or not she had tried to argue her case during a phone call with Mrs Rooney.
"That would be like arguing with a pigeon," Mrs Vardy said. "You can tell it that it’s wrong, but it’s still going to s*** in your hair."
The court also heard evidence that Mrs Vardy dismayed England players and their partners at the 2018 World Cup by colluding with the paparazzi to set up shots of the 'WAGs'.
As the women emerged from their hotel in St Petersburg to head out for dinner, they were confronted by a photographer.
Harpreet Robinson, a Football Association executive responsible for liaising with the players’ families, said in a statement that some of the wives and girlfriends "expressed annoyance and dissatisfaction… about being set up".
An unnamed England footballer told Ms Robertson he was angry because the players and their partners "did not court attention for their private lives".
The trial continues.
