Coleen Rooney claims the Sun has published three stories she made up herself in a bid to find the source of a suspected leak to the tabloid paper.
Rooney claimed in a statement published on Twitter this morning that someone she trusted enough to follow her private Instagram account has been passing on information about her to the Sun for years.
To prove her suspicion, Rooney (pictured) said she blocked all but one account from her private page and posted a series of false stories over the past five months “to see if they made their way into the Sun newspaper”.
“And you know what, they did!” she wrote, in a statement that has since gone viral.
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“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.”
Rooney claimed the account responsible belonged to Rebekah Vardy, the wife of Leicester City and England player Jamie.
The most recently published story – headlined: “Wayne and Coleen Rooney’s £20 million ‘Morrisons mansion’ flooded” – was taken down for a short time after Rooney published her statement.
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The URL at that point contained the words “legal removal”.
It has since been republished with a different URL and the additional line: “On Wednesday October 9th, Coleen Rooney said that she made this story up in an effort to find out who was leaking to the press.”
The “flooding” story was subsequently picked up by other news websites including the Daily Star, Mail Online, Metro and Mirror, who all appear to have deleted their articles after Rooney spoke out.
The other two Sun stories – both billed as “exclusive” and published within the past two months – remain online but have been updated with the same additional line about Rooney’s claim.
One claims Rooney travelled to Mexico to look into gender selection treatment so she can have a baby girl, while the other outlined her plans to revive her TV career.
In a story published today, the Sun said each of the stories was put to Rooney’s representatives before publication and that they had declined to comment on each occasion.
Rooney claimed that the only person who viewed her Instagram stories was Rebekah Vardy, but the rival football WAG has denied leaking the stories.
In her response, also published on Twitter, Vardy said: “I never speak to anyone about you as various journalists who have asked me to over the years can vouch for.”
She claimed that “various people” have had access to her Instagram over the years, and that if Rooney had shared her suspicions she would have changed her passwords to see if the leaking stopped.
“I’m not being funny but I don’t need the money, what would I gain from selling stories on you?” she wrote.
“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.”
Picture: Action Images via Reuters / Jason Cairnduff Livepic
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