Your essential Wagatha Christie recap as Coleen Rooney heads into the jungle
After much speculation, it's been confirmed that Coleen Rooney is heading into the Australian jungle to take part in this year's series of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!
The ITV1 show is entering its 24th series this year, and joining Coleen will be the likes of McFly singer Danny Jones, Strictly Come Dancing star Oti Mabuse, boxer Barry McGuigan, N-Dubz singer and former X Factor judge Tulisa Contostavlos and Coronation Street actor Alan Halsall.
But Coleen is undoubtedly the biggest name of the series, following her high-profile 2022 libel case against fellow footballer's wife Rebekah Vardy - dubbed Wagatha Christie for Coleen's high-stakes sleuthing worthy of any Agatha Christie novel.
The trial will no doubt be a big talking point in the I'm A Celeb camp this year, so get yourself up to speed with everything that happened with our essential guide.
What is Wagatha Christie?
In 2019, Coleen made an announcement on Twitter (now X) that captured the attention of the entire nation.
In the post (below), Coleen detailed how she had had suspicions for some time that someone close to her was leaking stories to The Sun newspaper from her personal Instagram account. To confirm her suspicions, she set a trap which ensured only one person saw a series of false stories and, lo and behold, they ended up in The Sun.
This has been a burden in my life for a few years now and finally I have got to the bottom of it...... pic.twitter.com/0YqJAoXuK1
— Coleen Rooney (@ColeenRoo) October 9, 2019
From Coleen's excellent sleuthing skills that even Agatha Christie would be impressed by to her wonderfully suspenseful use of ellipses: "It's ..........Rebekah Vardy's account," the story was a real life soap opera in the making. Together with the nation's collective fascination with WAGs (the acronym awarded to the wives and girlfriends of footballers), it seemed the entire country was gripped by what would happen next.
Rebekah sued Coleen for libel and in May 2022 the case came to trial at the High Court in London. Again, the nation was gripped by the two women's daily court appearances, loyally flanked by their footballer husbands, Wayne Rooney and Jamie Vardy.
During the trial, it was found that attempts were made by Rebekah's legal team to conceal incriminating evidence, when texts couldn't be recovered from Rebekah or her agent Caroline Watt's mobile phones.
On 29 July 2022, the court dismissed Rebekah's claim as it found Coleen's statements to be "substantially true." Rebekah was ordered to pay 90% of Coleen's legal expenses, which stood at £1.8 million; together with her own legal costs, the total was estimated at £3 million.
The trial has since been documented and dramatised in various stage and television adaptations. Just months after the court ruling, Channel 4 broadcast a dramatisation titled Vardy v Rooney: A Courtroom Drama, while Discovery+ aired a two part TV documentary, Vardy vs Rooney: The Wagatha Trial.
At Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End, a verbatim dramatisation of the trial called Vardy v Rooney: The Wagatha Christie Trial was staged from November 2022 to January 2023, and was subsequently nominated for the Noël Coward Olivier Award.
Disney+ aired the drama documentary, Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story, in October 2023, and even as recently as August 2024, Wagspiracy: Vardy v Rooney, was broadcast on BBC 3.
I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! starts on ITV1 on Sunday 17th November.
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