Wagatha Christie trial: Rebekah Vardy told to pay £1.5m of Coleen Rooney’s legal costs

Rebekah Vardy has been told to pay £1.5m of Coleen Rooney’s legal costs after losing a defamation case earlier this year.

The high court decided that Vardy must pay 90% of Rooney’s costs in a ruling issued on Tuesday (October 4).

Mrs Justice Steyn added that £800,000 of the cost of the bill must be paid by 4pm on November 15.

And now, on top of paying Rooney’s legal fees, Vardy will have to pay her own, which could bring her total bill to over £3m.

The judge partly imposed the ruling after Vardy, wife of Leicester City footballer Jamie Vardy, deliberately destroyed Whatsapp messages and other evidence relating to the trial, according to The Guardian.

The dispute began in 2019 when Rooney, who is married to former England footballer Wayne, accused Vardy of leaking posts from her private Instagram account to the Sun newspaper.

Vardy brought a libel battle against Rooney for social media posts in which she outlined her ‘sting’ operation to find out who was leaking the stories, later alleging on Twitter: “It was… Rebekah Vardy’s account.”

The highly-publicised week-long trial took place in May and Rebekah Vardy lost the libel trial against Coleen Rooney on July 29, 2022.