Coleen Rooney has told a court she believes Rebekah Vardy would attack herself in an anonymous column about “Wags” in The Sun to cover her tracks.
The 36-year-old said she believed the model was involved in the article in some way and would try and throw people off the scent.
Ms Rooney took the witness stand on Monday for her libel trial against Ms Vardy, which centres on the latter being accused of leaking private information about Ms Rooney to the press.
Ms Vardy denies the allegations and is suing her fellow footballer’s wife for libel.
Her lawyer quizzed Ms Rooney on Monday about who she believes is “The Secret Wag” - an anonymous column in The Sun about the private lives of the wives and girlfriends of famous UK footballers.
“Your case is that Ms Vardy is secret Wag, or a principal source or a source for the secret Wag,” Hugh Tomlinson asked.
“Do you say that the secret Wag column contains any information from your private Instagram?”
“No”, Ms Rooney replied.
Mr Tomlinson told Ms Rooney that “the secret Wag column was actually quite nice about you”, adding: “It says that you are the nicest Wag”.
“You think it was a distraction technique by saying that you are the nicest Wag”, Mr Tomlinson put to Ms Rooney.
Ms Rooney confirmed she believed that Ms Vardy would attack herself and praise Ms Rooney in the secret Wag column to throw people off the scent.
“I believe that it was done in the same way as my Instagram, so either Mrs Vardy either gives the information herself or through someone else,” Ms Rooney said about the column.
The High Court trial centres on an explosive social media post by Ms Rooney in 2019, which detailed an elaborate scheme to work out who was leaking stories from her Instagram to the press and earned her the nickname “Wagatha Christie”.
It concluded with: “It’s...... Rebekah Vardy’s account.”
The trial so far has seen Ms Vardy, who has already taken the witness stand, quizzed about her relationships with the media and messages with her agent discussing lpotentially leaking stories.
Ms Rooney told the court on Friday she had suspicions leaks from her private Instagram were coming from Ms Vardy’s account when she unfollowed her on social media.
The High Court heard Ms Rooney said her children may have been on her phone and unfollowed Ms Vardy when asked about it.
“Yes, it was a cover-up for what I was investigating,” she told the court.
Ms Rooney continued: “I had my suspicions that Mrs Vardy could be doing this from her account and when I received that message it made me realise even more that it was suspicious, and I did tell a fib.”
Ms Rooney is expected to finish giving evidence on Monday, with husband Wayne set to take the stand on Tuesday.
