Coleen Rooney was out car shopping today while Rebekah Vardy tried to drag her back into court.
The wife of Leicester striker Jamie Vardy, 42, alleges that the WAG, 38, from Liverpool, has grossly inflated her costs from their defamation dispute two years ago. Rebekah is now set to challenge the £1.8million bill, which she believes has been unjustly bloated by the former England star’s wife.
However, Coleen had other things on her mind today as she popped out to a swanky car dealership in Stockport. Telling her followers she’d got an “exclusive” glimpse of two new mega-money “supercars”, she posed next to the eye-wateringly expensive Yangwang U8 and U9 vehicles, which can be snapped up for a cool £120,000 and £184,000 respectively.
Captioning the snap in which she grins in the dealership, sporting navy jeans, flats and a cropped cream jumper, Coleen said: “Popped into LSH auto BYD Stockport to get an exclusive first glimpse of supercars Yangwang U8 and U9.”
Coleen Rooney told fans she got an ‘exclusive’ glimpse of two new ‘supercars’
The Yangwang cars, enormous hybrid SUVs from the upmarket sub-brand of Chinese electric car giant BYD, are the most powerful SUVs in the world and can drive on—yes, on, not in—water, according to the manufacturer.
However, they’re not cheap and money has been on Coleen’s mind after she claimed she ran up a legal bill totalling more than £1.8 million from her high-profile Wagatha Christie libel battle against Rebekah, the High Court has been told today.
Rebekah lost her case action in July 2022 after she sued Coleen following a legal row, which started when the wife of former Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney, accused Rebekah of leaking her private information to the press on social media, which Mrs Justice Steyn found was “substantially true.”
The state-of-the-art cars cost mega money
Rebekah Vardy has alleged that the WAG’s legal costs are grossly inflated from their defamation dispute (
Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Back in October, 2022, Rebekah was sentenced to pay 90% of Coleen’s legal costs, with an initial £800,000 then ordered to be paid. Both of the women’s solicitors have since returned to court in London to settle on the amount needing to be paid, as Rebekah’s representatives claimed Rooney’s legal bill totalled £1,833, 906.89.
In written submissions revealed this Monday, October 7, 2024, Jamie Carpenter KC, who was representing Rebekah Vardy, said that this included costs for a lawyer staying “at the Nobu Hotel, incurring substantial dinner and drinks charges as well as mini bar charges.” “The costs dispute has been rendered particularly intractable by the sheer magnitude of the costs claimed by Mrs Rooney, in absolute terms and when compared to her agreed costs budget, the number of errors in the bill and the extraordinary nature of some of the costs claimed”, he added. However, Mrs Rooney’s barrister argued the costs could have been lower if Mrs Vardy had “conducted this litigation appropriately”.
Mr Carpenter said the bill was “drawn without sufficient care” and had “a ‘kitchen sink’ approach”, and included “over £120,000 of costs to which Mrs Rooney has no entitlement”. He also said that Mrs Rooney’s barrister, David Sherborne, “charged total fees over the course of the proceedings of £497,850”. In a viral social media post in October 2019 Coleen told how she had carried out a months-long “sting operation” to find out which of her private Instagram followers was leaking stories to the press.
She publicly claimed Mrs Vardy’s account was behind three fake stories featured in The Sun newspaper that she had set so only Vardy’s account could see them. They included details of her travelling to Mexico for a “gender selection”
procedure, her planning to return to TV and the basement flooding at her home. Following the high-profile trial, Mrs Justice Steyn ruled in Mrs Rooney’s favour, finding it was “likely” that Mrs Vardy’s agent, Caroline Watt, had passed information to The Sun and that she “knew of and condoned this behaviour”.
The judge added that Mrs Vardy had “actively” engaged, “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”. Hitting back in the court costs dispute yesterday, Robin Dunne, representing Mrs Rooney said in his written submissions that Mrs Vardy had shown “deplorable conduct” in the case, and that costs could have been lower if “she conducted this litigation appropriately”.
He said: “This was a libel claim which Mrs Vardy chose to launch, despite knowing that the Instagram post was true. Mrs Vardy refused to engage with Mrs Rooney to try and avoid these proceedings and by her conduct meant that significant additional costs were required to be incurred by Mrs Rooney.” He continued: “It sits ill in Mrs Vardy’s mouth to now claim that Mrs Rooney’s costs, a great deal of which were caused directly by her conduct,
are unreasonable.”
The hearing before senior costs judge Andrew Gordon-Saker, which was not attended by either Mrs Rooney or Mrs Vardy on Monday, will conclude tomorrow.