The war of the Wags rages on. Rebekah Vardy, who infamously took Coleen Rooney to court in 2022 after Rooney accused her of leaking private social media posts to The Sun (a libel case that Vardy lost), has now opened up a new front in hostilities ahead of her arch-rival's expected appearance on the next season of jungle-based reality show I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!
Vardy clearly sees Rooney's signing - for a reported sum of at least £1.5 million - as a personal slight, since she first appeared on the ITV juggernaut in 2017. Vardy shared an old picture of herself on the show to her Instagram on Monday with the caption "That feeling when you start seeing rehashed nonsense". She added a pigeon emoji to the snide post, most likely an allusion to an earlier insult. In 2019 she told the Daily Mail: "Arguing with Coleen is like arguing with a pigeon. You can tell it that you are right and it is wrong, but it's still going to s -- in your hair."
That delightful comment came after Rooney had turned sleuth in order to find her leak. She posted fabricated stories to her Instagram and changed her settings so they could only be seen by certain individuals, ticking off the suspects until she felt she had the proof to publicly accuse Vardy on Twitter. Impressed followers dubbed Rooney "Wagatha Christie".
Clearly the subsequent court case was only part two of this ridiculous but weirdly riveting drama, much as their footballer husbands, Jamie Vardy and Wayne Rooney, might wish it would all end. Now it's time for Act III - and this time, we're operating by the law of the jungle.
In fact, if Vardy had her way, she'd be on a plane to Australia, all set to confront Rooney in person. A friend of Vardy's said: "She'd love to see the look on Coleen's face as she appeared. It would make the best television." They continued: "She thinks it's hilarious that Coleen is copying her and it is only encouraging people to keep talking about Wagatha rather than leave it in the past."
Vardy, meanwhile, has made a habit of these sly digs on social media. She recently posted: "I take rumours as a compliment. The fact that you're bringing my name on to tables I don't sit at shows your obsession. Stay bothered."
But it definitely sounds like Vardy is just as preoccupied by Rooney's actions - if not more so. Another source said that she and her legal team planned to watch I'm A Celebrity "like hawks" in case Rooney mentioned Vardy at all, which could potentially give them ammunition for a defamation claim.
As it stands, Rooney has resolutely bested her nemesis in the law courts. In July 2022 Mrs Justice Steyn dismissed Vardy's libel claim on the basis that Rooney's accusation was "substantially true". It was a disastrous outcome for Vardy: Robin Dunne, Rooney's barrister, called the whole proceeding "the most ill-advised legal action since Oscar Wilde put pen to writ".
Vardy now owes Rooney around £1.8 million after she was ordered to pay 90 per cent of her foe's legal costs, although last week Vardy was back in court to appeal against that ruling.
But being in such a financial black hole doubtless makes it all the more galling to hear that Rooney has reportedly scored I'm A Celebrity's highest appearance fee ever: sources claim that she has topped Nigel Farage's £1.5 million fee from 2023. Vardy, by comparison, was reportedly paid around £100,000.
Rooney is a big name for the show, and viewers would probably keep her around far longer than Vardy, who was ejected humiliatingly early. She took part in season 17, which also featured Boris Johnson's father Stanley, boxer Amir Khan, and eventual winner Georgia "Toff" Toffolo from Made in Chelsea.
Vardy was the third contestant to be eliminated, outlasting only comedian Shaparak Khorsandi and Scottish Labour politician Kezia Dugdale. The Wag had faced several of the dreaded Bushtucker Trials, although she also escaped some of the worst horrors on medical grounds (for one trial, she was exempt because of her fish allergy).
Instead of the British public falling in love with Vardy, as she may well have hoped, they criticised her behaviour - not just the shirking of those trials, but also for bullying one of her fellow contestants, broadcaster Iain Lee.
The scandal stemmed from Lee pulling out of a challenge due to his fear of heights. An unsympathetic Vardy told the cameras: "I think he's a guy that's struggling, but that doesn't excuse bad behaviour and I won't tolerate it." She angrily accused Lee of "playing a game" for saying that he wanted to leave, claiming that he actually wanted to win and was "playing the sympathy card".
Lee later said that Vardy had "a very dark energy" and that he'd found her "thoroughly unpleasant". Meanwhile outraged ITV viewers demanded that she be axed from her role as an ambassador with mental health charity YoungMinds UK.
Vardy, evidently bitter about the backlash and her swift exit from the show, in turn claimed that "certain things [on I'm A Celebrity] are fake". She added: "TV is so powerful. They have the power to edit, cut, crop and repaste certain bits into conversations that make it look certain ways."
Did the programme's producers set out to frame Vardy as a villain? We'll never know for sure. But if they have scored Rooney for the 2024 season, and for such a whopping sum, they'll be wanting a massive return on their investment - and that means nudging her into talking about the Wagatha Christie case.
The entire affair was so juicy, and so gloriously absurd, that it became a national sensation. Highlights included the airing of Vardy's quote that Peter Andre is "hung like a small chipolata", or a confused Vardy, on hearing that her agent had (very conveniently) dropped her phone in the sea and that it was now in Davy Jones's locker, asking, to courtroom hilarity: "Who is Davy Jones?"
It's already been turned into a Channel 4 drama, a West End play and been the subject of several documentaries. But I'm A Celebrity is a whole new arena - and Rooney could take this opportunity to have the last word.
Her lawyers will urge caution, of course, but once she's out in the jungle, might she go rogue? The programme will definitely make reference to Wagatha Christie, probably in the form of quips from presenters Ant and Dec, and maybe even themed trials, such as a game testing Rooney's detective skills.
Vardy and Rooney's loyal supporters will also be watching avidly. This spat has divided the Wag camp, with several high-profile wives publicly backing one or other of the rival claimants.
Nicola McLean (wife of footballer Tom Williams) is firmly Team Vardy. She has insisted that Vardy doesn't actually care about the limelight, and she also said of Rooney: "Everyone thinks Coleen is really private, but remember she's done countless interviews, books and even her own TV show."
Meanwhile Danielle Lloyd (ex-wife of footballer Jamie O'Hara) sympathised with Rooney on This Morning, saying that she had had "similar run-ins" with Vardy. She added that she wasn't that shocked at learning Vardy was allegedly the leak. Chantelle Heskey (married to striker Emile Heskey) also backed Rooney, telling Victoria Derbyshire: "There's only so much you can take and Coleen's a very private person."
Other celebrity fans include A-list actress Keira Knightley. When an interviewer jokingly suggested she could play Rooney in a film about the spat, Knightley replied: "Oh yeah, brilliant. Done!"
Presenter Piers Morgan initially demurred, saying that he got on well with both the Vardys and the Rooneys, so was "stuck in the middle". But he seems to have come down on Vardy's side, commenting that she was "very convincing" in her denial of Rooney's accusations. He also wrote that he was raising a "slightly quizzical eyebrow" at Rooney's claim that she believed all her posts were private.
Now Rooney has the chance to win over any remaining doubters by sharing her side of the story. If she can give a convincingly tearful account of her suffering to her I'm A Celebrity castmates while sat around the campfire, she'll score a primetime victory over a fuming Vardy. But whichever Wag comes out on top, this latest instalment promises to be must-see TV.