Rebekah Vardy has admitted she believes she is suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder, following her high-profile libel case against Coleen Rooney.
The 40-year-old revealed to The Sun that since Coleen publicly accused her of leaking “false stories” about her private life back in 2019, she has been admitted to hospital twice to be treated for mental health issues.
The WAG told the publication: “I was having serious panic attacks. I had kidney stones which were brought on by stress, and I just felt like my life was falling apart. Physically, emotionally and mentally it was exhausting. It was draining.”
She added: “I had to go to hospital a couple of times because they were really worried about my mental wellbeing. And since the court case, I think I’m probably suffering with PTSD.”
“I feel physically sick when I talk about the trial and what happened, and I have nightmares. I haven’t gone to get a diagnosis yet but I do know I probably need some more therapy. It’s been a horrible time.”
Rebekah launched a libel lawsuit against Coleen back in 2020, after she publicly accused her of leaking “false stories” about her private life.
In October 2019, the wife of Wayne Rooney claimed she planted false information on her private Instagram page and blocked everyone from her story – except Rebekah’s account.
The mother-of-four said stories about her basement flooding, returning to TV, and gender selection were only viewed by Rebekah’s account – and the false stories all made it into the press.
Coleen believed this was proof that the fellow WAG allegedly sold stories about her private life, but Rebekah vehemently denied her claims.
Their legal battle concluded with a highly-publicised trial at London’s High Court in May, which saw both WAGs give evidence in court.
Rebekah tried to prove she wasn’t behind the leaks, however, Coleen defended her claim in court on the basis her post was “substantially true”.
Rebekah lost the libel case on Friday last week. In her ruling, obtained by the PA news agency, Mrs Justice Steyn agreed with Coleen’s defence, and said it was “likely” that Rebekah’s then-agent, Caroline Watt, “undertook the direct act” of passing the information to The Sun newspaper.
Her judgement read: “Nonetheless, the evidence… clearly shows, in my view, that Mrs Vardy knew of and condoned this behaviour, actively engaging in it by directing Ms Watt to the private Instagram account, sending her screenshots of Mrs Rooney’s posts, drawing attention to items of potential interest to the press, and answering additional queries raised by the press via Ms Watt.”
“In my judgment, the conclusions that I have reached as to the extent to which the claimant engaged in disclosing to the Sun information to which she only had access as a permitted follower of an Instagram account which she knew, and Mrs Rooney repeatedly asserted, was private, suffice to show the single meaning is substantially true.”
During the trial, Coleen’s barrister David Sherborne argued that Rebekah had leaked information to the press in the past, and had a history of passing on private information through her friend and former agent Caroline Watt.
The WAG also declared it was in the public interest to expose Rebekah for portraying a “false image” as the “First Lady of Football” when she had been “secretly leaking information” about others.
Discussing Coleen’s viral “reveal” post, Mr Sherbourne said: “It is what she believed at the time… and it is what she believes even more so now that we have got to the end of the case.”
However, Rebekah’s barrister Hugh Tomlinson said Coleen “failed to produce any evidence” that his client “regularly and frequently abused her status as a trusted follower” of her private Instagram account by leaking information from it to the press.
Rebekah strongly denied Coleen’s claims in court, but on the final day of the trial, she accepted that her former agent Caroline Watt, who had access to her Instagram account, may have been behind the leaks.
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