Coleen Rooney has accused Rebekah Vardy of leaking stories from her personal Instagram account to the tabloid press.
The wife of footballer Wayne Rooney posted her accusation on Twitter, saying Instagram stories which she had only made visible to Ms Vardy’s account eventually feaured on The Sun newspaper.
Rebekah Vardy is the wife of Leicester and England striker Jamie Vardy.
In a Twitter post, Ms Rooney said: “For a few years now someone who I trusted to follow me on my personal Instagram account has been consistently informing the Sun newspaper of my private posts and stories. There has been so much information given to them about me, my friends and my family – all without my permission or knowledge.”
Ms Rooney said that she had a suspicion of who the person leaking information might be, and came up with a ruse to try and catch them red-handed.
“I blocked everyone from viewing my Instagram stories except one account. Over the past five months I have posted a series of false stories to see if they made their way into the Sun newspaper. And you know what, they did!
“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 fake stories included one about the Rooney’s family home flooding, another claiming Ms Rooney travelled to Mexico to look into ‘gender selection’ treatment to help her have a baby girl and another about her returning to TV.
Her tweet immediately went viral and had been liked 120,000 times within three hours of being published.
Both 'Coleen Rooney' and 'Rebekah Vardy' were trending worldwide on Twitter on Wednesday afternoon.
Rebekah Vardy denies
Ms Vardy replied to the allegation on Twitter too, denying the claims and suggesting somebody might have been using her Instagram account without her knowledge.
“I’m not being funny but I don’t need the money, what would I gain from selling stories on you?” she asked.
“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.”
The Sun newspaper has since amended the allegedly fake stories with a note warning readers that they may be fabricated, and said that in each case Ms Rooney’s representatives had been invited to comment prior to publication.