Everything We Know About Disney+ Documentary "Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story"

"Wagatha Christie" was the pun name to describe the 2019 public spat that rocked the nation, and we're finally going to learn more about Coleen Rooney's side of the story in an upcoming Disney+ documentary.

Despite Rooney, wife of footballer Wayne Rooney, being one of the leading 'WAGs' in football throughout the Noughties, she'd been focusing on being a mum-of-four in recent years. That is, until private information about her ended up in tabloid newspapers repeatedly, leaving her to become her very own social media sleuth to uncover who was giving tips to the papers. Her personal investigation led her to believe fellow WAG Rebekah Vardy, wife of striker Jamie Vardy, was the culprit, and she very publicly outed her findings. And so Rooney was thrust into the limelight once again.

A libel trial ensued with much furore as the two celebrities went head to head. Vardy, who initiated the court case, lost the trial in July 2022. While the now infamous line posted by Rooney on Instagram ("It's ………Rebekah Vardy's account") will forever go down in history, we're now going to get all the juicy details behind the court battle.

In the trailer, which the streamer released on 13 October, Rooney declares: "Don't play games with a girl who can play better." Her husband, Wayne; Piers Morgan; and her mum, Colette, all feature in the documentary, among others, to dissect how the sensational drama played out in the media and in her personal life.

Speaking about filming the series – which will see Rooney appearing alongside interviews with family, friends, and others involved in the trial – to British Vogue, she said: "It's brought up a lot of emotions. I felt like everyone else has spoken about it except me." She added: "And it's my story to tell."

Keep reading for all you need to know about the upcoming documentary "Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story".

What Is "Wagatha Christie"?

"Wagatha Christie" is the pop-culture nickname, a pun based on the detective author Agatha Christie, given to the dispute between Rooney and Vardy, which culminated in a 2022 libel case in the English High Court. You can't have possibly scrolled on social media last year without hearing the phrase being shared. So how did it come to be known as this?

Since 2017, Rooney was said to have been shocked at the number of personal stories that were being printed in The Sun, many of which were from information she had shared on her private Instagram account. As such, she blocked members of her friends and family one by one to determine who was behind the string of stories. Then, she began to post fake news.

"Over the past five months I have posted a series of false stories to see if they made their way into The Sun newspaper," she began in a 2019 Instagram post. "And you know what, they did! The story about gender selection in Mexico, the story about returning to TV and then the latest story about the basement flooding in my new house," she detailed. While telling followers about her discoveries, she ended the post with such a climax it left the country aghast, as she relayed that her findings led her to believe it was Vardy tipping off the paper.

Vardy denied the accusations and proceeded to sue Rooney for libel. During the court case, Vardy was asked to hand over her mobile phone for evidence, but said that the relevant information had been lost during a back up and no one could remember her new password. Her agent, Caroline Watt, claimed that she had accidentally dropped her phone into the North Sea during her family holiday.

However, WhatsApp messages between Vardy and Watt were salvaged, with many exchanges about Rooney being publicised, including them calling her "attention-seeking" amongst other vulgar names. They also spoke about Rooney's late sister, Rosie, who died from Rett syndrome in 2013 at the age of 14 and discussed whether Vardy mentioning Rosie to her would be seen as "endearing".

Vardy, now 41, and Rooney, now 37, spent seven days in the High Court. Ultimately, Vardy lost the case on 29 July 2022, with a high court judge concluding that "significant parts" of Vardy's evidence were not credible and there were many occasions when her evidence "was manifestly inconsistent with the contemporaneous documentary evidence, evasive or implausible", as per The Guardian, and was ordered to pay £1.5 million in legal fees to Rooney.

Vardy maintains the judge got the verdict wrong, telling Sky News: "The judge accepted that publication of Coleen's post was not in the 'public interest' and she also rejected her claim that I was the 'Secret Wag'. But as for the rest of her judgement, she got it wrong and this is something I cannot accept."

Now, over a year on from the trial, Rooney said to British Vogue: "What I said in that post, I still stick by today."

Image Source: Getty Images

"Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story" Trailer

What Is "Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story" About?

The upcoming Disney+ series "Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story" sees Rooney telling her story in her own words, front and centre. The series will reveal how the media personality became an amateur detective to discover how her private social media posts continued to appear in the tabloids.

"The three-part series looks at the circumstances that led to her infamous Instagram post that 'broke the Internet' all the way to Coleen successfully defending herself in one of the UK's highest-profile High Court defamation cases of recent years," reads the synopsis, via a press release.

The streaming platform is also detailing how Rooney has dealt with ongoing fame and publicity for much of her adult life, after being hailed as one of the UK's biggest celebrities.

When Is "Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story" Release Date?

"Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story" launches on 18 October on Disney+.

First-Look Photos of "Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story"

On 22 August, Disney+ released first-look photos of "Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story". In the three images, the footballer's wife looked smart in an all-black suit, wearing tailored trousers, and a power-dressing blazer with padded shoulders. Rooney looked serious in the pictures, which appear to be a re-creation of the courtroom where it all happened. Check out the images below.