Coleen Rooney has detailed how she rumbled “fame hungry” Rebekah Vardy on day five of the High Court libel trial.
The three-year defamation case centres around Rooney, 36, accusing Vardy, 40, of leaking "false stories" about her private life in October 2019.
She said she carried out a months-long “sting operation” which saw her dubbed “Wagatha Christie”.
And today Coleen Rooney, who is married to Derby County manager Wayne, has revealed details of how she rumbled Vardy, wife of Leicester City striker Jamie, in a multimillion-pound seven-day libel trial in London.
Giving evidence in her cross-examination Coleen told the court how she confessed to her publicist Rachel Monk she was suspicious of Rebekah Vardy.
She said Vardy had been “fame hungry” at the 2018 World Cup and had been “speaking to the press”.
Monk told her to “delete her off your Insta”. (sic)
Rebekah Vardy's lawyer Hugh Tomlinson QC asked why she had not simply done that. Rooney explained she had already tried it but Vardy had come back on to her demanding to know why she had blocked her.
Tomlinson asked: “You wanted to trap her?'' to which Rooney replied: “No, not trap. I just wanted to find out who was doing this to me. I thought if I went public with whoever it was it would stop.”
Tomlinson quizzed Rooney over why she had not told anyone about her “sting operation”.
Rooney said: “Because I don't like to do something if I'm not 100% sure myself. So I didn't want to mention it to anyone if there was the smallest little bit of doubt. I felt I didn't need to tell anyone.”
Tomlinson asked why she had not told husband Wayne.
“One thing I don't do is put my troubles or worries on someone else,'' she replied. “I try to deal with things in silence myself until I need to.''
Rooney explained how she used a ‘hide my story' function on Instagram to ensure only Vardy's account could view fake stories she was posting. The stories were hidden from her other 300 followers on her private account.
She said the "gender selection story" - one of her fake tales - was "only seen by one person".
Tomlinson suggested that sometimes "things go missing" by accident on social media and asks why she therefore thinks Vardy's missing evidence was a deliberate cover up.
Rooney said: “I feel that there were a lot of occasions when things went missing not just from Mrs Vardy and Caroline Watt. I do understand things can happen. But not that much.''
Rooney then told of the moment she felt she had finally rumbled Rebekah Vardy. She had published a made-up Story on Instagram about her flooded basement.
“The story was fake,'' she said. “There was nothing to it.''
Afterwards Rooney posted on her private Instagram: “Don't play games with a girl who can play better.''
Vardy’s lawyer Tomlinson asked why. Rooney replied: “I felt like I'd found out who it was. It was a quote that I found and put it up. It is just something that I did.''
Lawyer Mr Tomlinson asked Coleen if she had considered telling Vardy before publicly exposing her.
She replied: “No. I decided that was not what I was going to do. I realised she had a relationship with the press. I thought maybe if I did approach her she might twist it.
“She might say it was not her and cover it up somehow, be nice and not be truthful. So I didn't give her the opportunity. I believe that it was her account and she knew about it.''
Coleen denied framing her big social media reveal as a "whodunnit" - and said she had no idea the story would explode.
Lawyer Mr Tomlinson suggested she knew her reveal would be create "massive" headlines worldwide.
“I knew that it would get attention - but I didn't think it would be big,” she said. “I didn't think I would be sitting here today. It was way bigger than I intended.''
Tomlinson said she designed her reveal as a "whodunnit" to attract attention.
“I use dots a lot,'' she said in court. “That was just the way I write. It came natural to me. I had come to the end of what I could do.''
Last week, the High Court was shown expletive-ridden WhatsApp messages exchanged between Vardy and her agent, Caroline Watt, where Vardy branded Coleen Rooney a “c***”.
As well as saying she should “get over herself”, Vardy also branded Ms Rooney a “stupid cow” as she said she “deserves everything she gets”.
In court today, Rooney blasted the messages Vardy exchanged with agent Caroline Watt as "evil and uncalled for".
She said: “I’m the total opposite to what they describe. I’m not a bad person. The words they use are totally untrue. There’s no need for it because I have never done anything to them for them to monitor and stalk me.”
Rooney explained she wouldn’t even know what Caroline Watt looked like and had never spoken to her and never met her.
Vardy’s lawyer Tomlinson then suggested she relished exposing Vardy as the "villain".
“No, not the villain. Whether it was Rebekah Vardy or someone else I would have done it the same way.
“I felt like I needed to do something. That is what I decided to do and I did.''
The trial continues.
