Paul Greenwood/BPI/Shutterstock, Ken McKay/ITV/ShutterstockRebekah Vardy is still living a nightmare.
Back in October, Coleen Rooney epically exposed her fellow British WAG for selling stories about her to British tabloids. In a lengthy Instagram post, Coleen detailed how she had blocked all of her Instagram followers from viewing her stories except for one in the hopes of finding the culprit. "I have posted a series of false stories to see if they made their way into the Sun newspaper," she wrote. "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."
"Now I now for certain with account / individual it's come from," Coleen continued. "I have saved and screenshotted all the original stories which clearly show just one person has viewed them. It's...Rebekah Vardy's account."
The fall out that came next would nearly kill Rebekah. In an emotional interview on ITV's Loose Women, the 37-year-old opened up the turmoil she's experienced. "It was really, really hard," Rebekah said while choking back tears. "It's probably up there in one of the worst things that I've had to to deal with apart from being abused by my stepdad when I was younger."
When the story first broke, she was seven months pregnant and on a babymoon in Dubai with her husband Jamie Vardy, a Leicester City football player. "We were just about to leave to go for dinner with some of our friends and we were in a taxi," she recalled. "It was my manager actually that messaged me and she said, ‘You need to see this.' I looked at my phone and there it was in all its glory."
In that moment, she was shocked. "It was hideous," Rebekah explained. "It was horrible. I don't think I was prepared for what was to come."
Indeed, no one could prepare for what was to come. "The trolling, I think, was the worst part for me and my family," the I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here alum revealed. "I have been trolled before and I do get it all the time but it escalated."
"I had people messaging me saying nasty stuff," she continued. "'You fat, ugly rat. I genuinely hope you and your baby rot.'"
The online bullying made her physically ill. "I ended up with severe anxiety attacks, I ended up in hospital three times," Rebekah, who gave birth in December, admitted. "I ended up with kidney stones."
"I felt like I couldn't go out without people just looking at me and questioning, 'Did she do it? Did she not do it?'" she added. "No one would ever say anything to your face and that's the whole thing with trolling. They won't say it to your face."
Since Coleen's exposé, Rebekah has maintained her innocence. "Over the years various people have had access to my Insta and just this week I found I was following people I didn't know and have never followed myself," she said when the story first broke. "I'm not being funny but I don't need the money, what would I gain from selling stories on you? I liked you a lot Coleen and I'm so upset that you have chosen to do this, especially when I'm heavily pregnant. I'm disgusted that I'm even having to deny this."