Coleen Rooney ‘wants last-minute exit from Rebekah Vardy libel case’

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Coleen Rooney reportedly wants to make a last-minute exit from her upcoming £1 million High Court libel battle against Rebekah Vardy, set to take place from November.

Sources claim those close to the wife of Derby County footballer Wayne Rooney, 34, have been encouraging her to settle their dispute privately, after her rival, 38, confirmed she is taking part in Dancing On Ice and has vowed to ‘clear her name’. 

The pair have been at loggerheads ever since Coleen accused Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy’s wife of leaking stories about her to the media last October – a claim she fiercely denies.  

An insider told The Sun: ‘Things have gone much further than many had expected. 

‘Coleen is a rather shy and private person, so the idea of having personal matters relating to her and Wayne raked over in court is something that fills her with dread.’ 

MailOnline has contacted representatives for Coleen and Rebekah for further comment.

The new claims came after I’m A Celebrity star Becky addressed their highly-publicised feud on Tuesday’s Good Morning Britain, when she also revealed she’s set to take to the rink and appear on next year’s edition of Dancing On Ice.

The reality star said: ‘Look, we tried to sort things out amicably, it just didn’t work. I understand people think it’s ridiculous, but what was I meant to do? I need to clear my name. 

‘I want to clear my name. I will do whatever that takes. I hope it’s going to be resolved soon. It’s just one of the things that has to go through the process unfortunately now.

‘I found it really tough. But to be fair Piers, in comparison to what some people have gone through with COVID and things like that, it’s incomparable.’

She added of her ITV stint: ‘I’m so ready for the sequins and the full glam squad. After months of lockdown it’ll be nice to get the glam on… I just think I want everyone to laugh at me really! 

‘My dad taught me how to stand up on a pair of skates when I was about 7 years old, we used to go skating a lot when my mum and dad split up, we would go with him to the local ice rink. 

‘I’m really excited actually. The only time I’ve been ice skating since is when we take our kids to the rink.’ 

Asked whether her husband Jamie, 33, is excited to see her compete on the show, she added: ‘He says he hopes I don’t fall over too much so I hope I don’t fall over too much!’

Rebekah added that she decided to sign up for the show as she wanted ‘everyone to laugh at her,’ and revealed she is due to start training ‘in a couple of weeks.’ 

The brunette explained: ‘I’m really looking forward to getting my teeth into that and get going with it. I’m going to give 100 per cent effort throughout. And I hopefully won’t knock my Shergar teeth out.’

According to The Mirror, Coleen and Rebekah will face off in November – just over one year after the former accused the latter of leaking stories about her.

Former model Becky is seeking substantial damages in the subsequent libel trial, as she claims to have suffered ‘severe and extreme hostility and abuse’ in the fallout after the claims were published on Instagram.   

It was recently claimed that Coleen wants to undertake ‘forensic analysis’ of Rebekah’s electronics to look for evidence, according to a report from The Sun 

A source speaking to the publication claimed: ‘Coleen met with her lawyers and they’ve told her they need to continue putting together more evidence.

‘She needs to prove that Becky was directly responsible for the leaks or, at the very least, that the information came from her social media account.  

‘Coleen is adamant she is right, but in a legal setting the evidence she has may not be enough to cross the threshold.’  

Coleen also reportedly declared that she ‘won’t be bullied’ by Becky when their libel case goes to court.

A source told The Sun that ‘Coleen is totally confident. She says she won’t be bullied and is ready for a scrap.’ 

Coleen has also said she won’t be intimidated by ‘strong-arm tactics’ saying Rebekah’s attempt to hurry along legal proceedings are ‘laughable’.

This follows further claims that Coleen said she is ‘not worried at all’ about Rebekah’s apparent rush to bring their WAG war to court ‘immediately’. 

According to reports, Coleen has told pals that her WAG rival is only speeding things up as she’s ‘concerned’ what Coleen’s lawyers will find. 

The Sun claims that amid Rebekah’s apparent call for Coleen to ‘put up or shut up’, the Liverpool native remains confident she has an ‘extremely strong case’.

A source told the publication: ‘Coleen remains confident that she has an extremely strong case. She almost laughed when she saw the story about Becky’s latest move, which has not worried her at all.’ 

The publication states that Coleen has vowed to fight back against Rebekah’s rush of taking things to court, and will instead spent time building a strong case. 

They continued: ‘Coleen will be setting out her defence in the next few weeks. She is very happy with her legal team, who have been working around the clock on this.

‘Her lawyers specialise in investigative law and they are going through every form of communication between the two and between Becky and others since before Coleen started planting Instagram stories. So she is happy for her team to take their time to do this and not be rushed into anything by Becky.’

The insider went on to add that Coleen reckons Rebekah is putting on a front that she’s ‘ballsy’ but is secretly ‘worried’ about her defence.  

They added that Coleen has the ‘full support’ of footballer husband Wayne, 34. 

It was also claimed Rebekah signed legal papers in a bid to get Coleen to head to court ‘immediately’ amid their ongoing WAG war  

It was reported that Rebekah has filed the papers under the impression that Coleen is ‘dragging her heels’ following her bombshell accusations she has been selling stories about her to The Sun. 

The shock move is said to have come after Rebekah came to the conclusion that Coleen was purposefully ‘dragging her heels’ and wants her to ‘put up or shut up’ as the legal battle rumbles on.

According to reports, the session, which will be held later this year, will determine whether Becky was ‘libelled’ when Coleen accused her Instagram account of leaking stories to the press. 

A source told The Sun: ‘Things have been rumbling on for ages, and costs ­spiralling too.

‘This will mean that a judge can actually get to the crux of the case — and make those involved put up or shut up. It should mean things can finally get moving and dealt with quickly.

‘This is a shot across the bows. It effectively says, “Come on, stop mucking about, let’s get on with this”.’ 

The insider added the move would not be want Coleen would have wanted as it puts her on the ‘back foot’.  

The publication states that the mum-of-five’s bombshell demands come after Wayne Rooney’s wife has so far failed to bring forward a defence to court, with her legal team apparently requesting more time to build a case. 

They added that if a judge finds that Coleen was directly blaming Rebekah for selling the stories, then she will have to head to court and ‘prove’ her claims and ‘back it up’ with ‘evidence’. 

MailOnline reached out to Rebekah and Coleen’s representatives for comment at the time of publication.    

Earlier this year, Coleen was also accused of leaking stories to the press by Rebekah after she told in a bombshell legal document how she had been left suicidal by the accusation that she had leaked stories about Coleen and her family.

She also claimed in the document drawn up for her libel battle against Coleen that the stress of the scandal had left her fearful of losing her unborn baby at the time and suffering panic attacks that made her too scared to leave her home.

The I’m A Celeb star complained of being made a ‘scapegoat’ by her rival seeking to blame her for stories appearing when in the past Coleen had approved of her friends leaking gossip about her.

The document says Rebekah believes she ‘has deliberately been made a scapegoat (sic) by the Defendant (Coleen) for past ‘leaked’ stories.’

It points to previous stories about Coleen and Wayne with some ‘in particular about their marriage, which have in fact come from the Defendant’s friends, at times even with the Defendant’s approval.’  

The paper states that Sun journalist Dan Wootton had said on talkRADIO on October 19 last year that Coleen had ‘manipulated the media to tell stories about her own life’.

Wootton added that he had ‘written many, many stories’ about her marriage and ‘lots of other things around the Rooneys’ that had come directly from friends of Coleen including some told ‘with her (Coleen’s) approval’, says the document.

He went on to say on talkRADIO that nothing had ever come from ‘any of the Vardys’, it adds.

Rebekah describes in her document how Coleen’s public denunciation of her on Instagram while she was seven months pregnant had ‘gravely injured her reputation’.

Detailing how Coleen had ’caused her enormous distress and very extreme embarrassment’, she disclosed how she had been bombarded with abuse on social media.

Rebekah said that the widespread damage to her reputation was illustrated by research showing her name had become a more popular search term than ‘Brexit’ on Google in the UK on the day the scandal broke.

She also claimed that it led to her name appearing 276,822 times on Twitter on the same day, more than triple the number of mentions of Boris Johnson who had had his name published only 80,704 times.

Coleen made headlines around the world last October when she made her devastating claim that Rebekah had been leaking stories about her and her family to the Sun newspaper. 

She released the statement: ‘It’s been tough keeping it to myself and not making any comment at all, especially when the stories have been leaked, however I had to. Now I know for certain which account / individual it’s come from.

‘I have saved and screenshotted all the original stories which clearly show just one person has viewed them. It’s ……………. Rebekah Vardy’s account.’

Rebekah immediately denied the claims and has since been fighting to clear her name and demands Coleen withdraw the claims against her.