Rebekah Vardy broke down in tears at the witness box during her libel trial against Coleen Rooney.
The model, 40, is suing fellow footballers’ wife Coleen for libel after she was accused of leaking “false stories” to the media in October 2019.
The trail has been taking place at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, and the second day of the court clash saw Vardy herself take to the witness box to give evidence.
However, the model started crying over past abuse she received from online trolls, after she was shown an article in court.
The mum was standing at the witness box and had been shown an article in which she discussed the insults trolls have hurled at her – some of which were scrawled on her naked back in a photo for the article.
(Image: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
She was seen wiping away the tears from her face with a tissue, and the judge asked her if she wanted to take a break.
Rooney’s barrister David Sherborne then asked Vardy if she needed to take a moment, so she could recover.
Vardy replied: “I don’t think it will make any difference.”
Sherborne then offered to summarise the 2017 article, which was published in the Sun on Sunday, to avoid causing her any more distress.
The lawyer said that in essence, Vardy could deal with trolls abusing her but drew the line when they targeted her children.
(Image: REUTERS)
Vardy quietly replied: “Yes”.
Vardy has three kids with Leicester striker husband Jamie – Sofia, Finlay and Grace – as well as her daughter Megan and son Taylor from her past relationship with footballer Luke Foster.
Some of the insults seen on Vardy’s back in the snap included “golddigger”, “fake”, “die”, “sl*g”, and “wh**e”.
Vardy is suing Rooney for libel after being accused of leaking private information to the media, after a months-long “sting operation” to discover the supposed culprit.
(Image: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Rooney, who is married to former England footballer Wayne Rooney, is defending the libel claim on the basis of truth and public interest.
Vardy denies leaking stories to the press, but Coleen says her claims were “substantially true”.
Tuesday saw Rooney’s barrister Sherborne outline his client’s defence case in court, where he described it as a “detective story” and likened Vardy to hiring a “hitman”.
He said: “In essence, this is a detective story, and like any good detective story, you never find a person standing over the body with a smoking gun.”
(Image: Getty Images)
He claimed Coleen has suffered a “betrayal” of trust, but Vardy’s legal rep Hugh Tomlinson QC denied the claims that Vardy had leaked information to the press.
Tomlinson said: “The allegation in the post was and remains false: Mrs Vardy had not leaked information about Mrs Rooney or her friends and family to the Sun newspaper from her private Instagram account.
“Mrs Rooney did not have the ‘irrefutable’ evidence that she claimed to have had: her so-called ‘careful investigation’ was nothing of the sort.
“If anyone had been leaking information from Mrs Rooney’s private Instagram this was not done with Mrs Vardy’s knowledge or approval.”
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
