Rebekah Vardy (40) defended the defamation lawsuit against her former friend Coleen Rooney (36) in court in a dispute between two English soccer player wives.
Former international striker Jamie Vardy's wife had no choice but to "prove her innocence and restore her reputation," her lawyer Hugh Tomlinson told London's Royal Courts of Justice on Tuesday.
The allegation that Rebekah Vardy leaked fabricated private information about the wife of ex-national player Wayne Rooney to a tabloid newspaper is false.
Coleen Rooney has no evidence to support her claims, Tomlinson said.
Rooney was joined in court by her famous husband on Tuesday.
In October 2019, she announced on social networks that she had long suspected that someone from her circle of friends was giving private information to the press.
She then blocked all accounts on her private Instagram account except for Rebekah Vardy and posted several made-up stories, which then found their way into the Sun newspaper.
So Vardy was the one responsible, Rooney concluded.
Lawyer Tomlinson now said his client had tried unsuccessfully to settle the case out of court several times.
But Rooney neither deleted nor retracted her allegation.
That's why both Rebekah and Jamie Vardy have been victims of horrible insults on the internet and in the stadium.
Several trial days were initially scheduled for the process.
The case is said to have cost both women hundreds of thousands of pounds each.
Jamie Vardy (35) plays for the English first division club Leicester City, Wayne Rooney (36) is now coach of the relegated second division club Derby County.