Coleen Rooney reveals the Wagatha Christie saga 'broke me as a person and stripped my personality' as she reflects on Rebekah Vardy court battle

Coleen Rooney says the Wagatha Christie ordeal with Rebekah Vardy 'was the worst time of my life'.

It's been almost seven years since Coleen, 40, unleashed her now-infamous Instagram post which accused fellow WAG Rebekah of leaking 'false stories' about her private life to the press.

Rebekah, 44, denied the allegations and sued for libel, but the case fell in her rival's favour, leaving her liable to pay £1.5million towards Coleen's legal fees.

Reflecting on the years of turmoil, Coleen says that whilst she has experienced her fair share of drama in life, including marriage problems with husband Wayne, that period 'was probably the worst time of my life'.

'Obviously I've gone through grief, I've gone through relationship problems, but I could take control of the situations… whereas this was out of my control,' the I'm A Celeb star has explained in a new interview.

Coleen explained to Paul C Brunson on his We Need To Talk podcast the 'sadness' she felt when many friends told her they feared she suspected them of the leaks. 

'I would have friends saying, "You wouldn't think it was me, would you?"' she said.

'But it wasn't until after I had done that post that I seen the relief in people's faces, and they came to me and was like, "All along, I've been thinking that I hope that you've not thought that I have done this".

'And I was like, "I would never in a million years think it would be you"… And it wasn't just a couple. It was a lot. It was quite a lot of people. And that made me sad.'

'They probably distanced themselves from me because they're thinking, "Oh, I don't want to hear anything. I don't want her here to tell me stuff because I don't want her to think then I'm going to go and tell someone, right?'

'I did what I did and I got to know all that what people was feeling around that time. But it was a horrible situation to be in and it totally stripped me of my personality.'

Coleen insisted that she was never even close with fellow WAG Rebekah and now questions why she let her into her circle.

'We didn't socialise. We were acquaintances because we were both married to partners who'd played for England together,' Coleen pointed out. 'But, you know, the thing is, in the first place, why was she in that group?… We were brought together because of our husbands' jobs, but we never had a friendship.' 

Coleen added that she never expected the drama to blow up as big as it did, but simply felt she needed to expose the leak because 'I've got a right to have some privacy'.

'The big thing to me was - the stuff that got leaked wasn't anything of the extreme secrecy, it's the fact that I have let you into my circle,' she said. 

'Even though I'm in the public eye, I've got a right to have some privacy. I've got a right to live my life… It really got to me that I've let this person in this space… Because now you're making me a person that I don't want to be. You're making me wary of people.'

After Coleen shared her October 2019 post, exposing Rebekah's Instagram account, her rival WAG denied the claims and implied her account had been hacked.

The following year Rebekah commenced action in the High Court to sue Coleen for defamation.

Coleen insisted that she's always believed the incident could have been dealt with privately, telling the podcast 'I did not want to go to court'.

'I was thinking that it's the worst place that you could put me because I am then the centre of attention and you know, I don't want to be there but then I've got the whole world looking on.'

'It's like you are opening yourself up for everyone else to judge that situation.'

Asked what she believes the incident cost her, Coleen immediately answered: 'Presence with my family. That was the biggest thing I felt so guilty about, was not being present.'

'You know, I was there physically, but mentally, as a mum, as a wife, my mind was just on that court case… This broke me as a person. It stripped my personality.'  

Coleen added that she has not heard from Rebekah since the trial ended in 2022. 

Rebekah meanwhile has insisted 'hell will freeze over' before she apologises to Coleen, stating in her ITV reality series released in June that it is Coleen who is in the wrong. 

'I'm never going to apologise for something I didn't do. Hell will freeze over before I do that. I'm living with the judgment the judge made but, still to this day, I believe she was wrong,' Rebekah told the show.