It's been nearly five years since Coleen Rooney's triple ellipses took the world by storm, and yet we're still obsessed with Wagatha Christie.
Much has changed since Rooney's bombshell post on Twitter declaring Rebekah Vardy a grass and accusing her of selling stories to The Sun: Twitter is no longer called Twitter, the two were involved in a blockbuster court case, Vardy was found guilty and Rooney has appeared on the cover of Vogue.
Over the past four years, every bit of information on the so-called "Wagatha Christie" saga has been wrung out, dissected, pored over and critiqued. Or so we thought.
As Coleen reclaims the narrative with her brand new Disney+ documentary, released today, she proves the naysayers wrong: it turns out there are still plenty headlines to be made out of Wagatha Christie. From Wayne Rooney's brief aspirations to become a lawyer, to Coleen's ultra bizarre upbringing in the public eye, here's everything we learned.
1. Paparazzi have been following Coleen since she was 16
When discussing Coleen's first brushes with fame in 2002, she and her family recall the desperate, invasive fight to get the first picture of her. It came after Wayne Rooney had scored an astounding goal for Everton against Arsenal in October 2002, and he skyrocketed to fame – meaning she did too.
The first picture of Coleen to appear in the press was obtained by a pap waiting near her school, who photographed her while she was walking home, still wearing her school uniform. After this, paparazzi were everywhere, and routinely photographed Coleen outside her school. Coleen's mum Colette tells how they would "jump out from behind bins" to get snaps of Coleen, or plaster pictures of her, still a teenager, in a bikini over the cover of tabloids.
2. The leaks started with Wayne’s drunk driving drama in 2017
The first leak came after Wayne Rooney was caught three times over the alcohol limit while behind the wheel of a car with a woman who was not Coleen in 2017. After more than a decade of cheating scandals, Coleen considered finally packing it in. "You think 'Do I actually know this person' when things like that happen," she says, "you know, 'You’re not the person I married and not the person I want you to be.'"
Coleen explains how she shared a picture to her private Instagram of her staying at her mum's house with the kids amid the fallout, prompting Rebekah Vardy to get in touch and offer her “annex” for them to stay in. Coleen deleted the post, but the next day the story of her having “fled” was all over The Sun, with the exact caption from her Instagram.
The next leak was a happy birthday post dedicated to Wayne while they were still fighting in 2017, once again quoting her private Insta, which was used to prove that the pair were back together. Next came three pics from when she moved back in with Wayne, picturing Coleen in bed with him and the kids, again used as evidence that the pair had got back together. At this point, Rooney knew undoubtedly it had to be someone leaking stories from her private Instagram.
3. They address the cheating
Much like the now-beloved Beckham documentary, the Rooney's address their well-known issues with cheating during the documentary, but only loosely. On why 2017's drunk driving incident was the breaking point, despite Wayne not having slept with the woman in the car, Coleen says, “Some mistakes are harder to forgive than others."
“Coleen was deeply disappointed that something like this had happened again," says Wayne's agent Paul Stretford.
Wayne weighs in with remorse for his actions: “Getting married... you make your vows. I want to spend my whole life with Coleen. You know, to put myself in a position where I could almost throw that away is so silly and stupid of me, it’s not what I want at all."
4. Coleen called out a 'snitch' on her Instagram years before knowing who it was
Coleen Rooney knew early on that someone was taking from her private Instagram, so she quickly took to her story to call this person a “snitch” in the hope they might stop. They didn't, and after leaks appeared for a third time, Coleen posted to her private Instagram's grid: “The GRASS strikes again!!! …. I put that picture on wondering if it would appear in that HORRIBLE news paper." Speaking of...
5. Coleen knew it could never be someone from Liverpool
As much as the leaking was irritating Coleen, she was particularly annoyed at the fact that the stories were going to The Sun, a paper which is derided by most Liverpudlians due to its reporting on the Hillsborough disaster in 1989.
“When these leaks were happening Coleen said to me, no one from the city of Liverpool would sell a story to that paper,” Coleen's friend Danielle tells her interviewer.
6. Rebekah Vardy tried to gaslight Coleen into thinking her account had been hacked
After Coleen called out the "snitch" multiple times, Vardy texted Coleen with an alternative explanation, to try and divert suspicion: “Omg what’s wrong with people! X”, she said, followed with: “You don’t think the paper has hacked your account do you?”
7. Coleen didn't even know Vardy was being paid for the stories until the trial
When Coleen initially worked out it was Rebekah Vardy leaking the stories, she assumed Vardy was leaking information in return for favourable coverage in The Sun, including magazine covers for The Sun's Fabulous magazine which dubbed her the "First Lady of football."
Her PR manager Rachel Monk agreed with Coleen: “Getting [that] kind of coverage in the UK's top tabloid newspaper which is sold to millions and read by millions is very difficult, for anyone, let alone with someone with not really much [of a] public profile as Rebekah Vardy. [...] [She’s] not the First Lady of football. That’s the kind of press that Victoria Beckham would have got."
Only at the trial, when a text between Vardy and her agent Caroline Watt was leaked showing how Vardy demanded to be "paid for this", did Coleen realise Vardy was also receiving financial compensation for her leaks.
8. Coleen got creative when it came to her fake leaks
When deciding what to leak to catch Vardy in a trap, Coleen started thinking about things the press would eat up. Everyone had always asked Coleen if she wanted a baby girl, she recalls, having had so many boys, so she came up with a story about going to Mexico to look into a newfangled gender selection process for her next baby.
Having removed her other followers from seeing her story, Coleen succeeded in catching Vardy as the only viewer. It was eventually passed to The Sun, who informed Coleen’s PR exec they had a “screenshot”, which could only have been from Rebekah Vardy.
Rooney purposefully didn’t deny it to her publicist or The Sun so it would be published, all in order for her plan to be fully realised. Dedication at the highest level.
9. Wayne Rooney genuinely thought his house had leaked
Coleen continued to post fake stories to catch Vardy, until the final fake leak, which was about... a fake leak (in the basement of the Rooney’s new house). This making it to the press was the tipping point for Coleen, because everyone believed it was real – even Wayne, who called his agent from abroad to check if the house was okay after the flooding.
10. And he briefly considered becoming a lawyer
Wayne Rooney enjoyed the strategy behind legal proceeding so much, Coleen revealed, that he actually started giving their barristers legal suggestions on how to fight their case. "I'd not dealt with Wayne that much before the trial but he was just fascinated with the whole thing," one of Coleen's lawyers says.
"It was interesting," Wayne recalls, "because I do like crime documentaries and in particular the different techniques the two barristers used." Coleen says she told him to "shut up and let [the lawyers] speak," though the lawyers said had they "given him a gown or a wig" he'd be up for "asking a few questions".
"He was then gonna apply for law school," Coleen says, "and he had all these plans." It's never too late Wayne! And if he's anything like his wife, he may well have had a shot.
