It’s ……….Rebekah Vardy’s account.

IN DECEMBER 2013, Rebekah Vardy, wife of Jamie Vardy, tweeted, ‘Cut the grass and you’ll soon find the snakes……#chatshit’. Five and a half years later, Coleen Rooney, wife of Wayne Rooney, discovered that she had a snake problem. This particular snake was following her private Instagram account and running to The Sun to tell them what she was posting. A tattlesnake, if you will.

The problem was ongoing for a number of years. Eager to uncover the identity of this informant, Coleen heeded Rebekah Vardy’s advice. She donned some overalls, revved up her lawn mower and said, “Alright, let’s find some bloody snakes.”

Rooney concocted a brilliant plan. For five months, she blocked all her followers bar one from viewing her Instagram Stories. Then she posted a series of fabricated stories to see if they would find their way into The Sun.

There was the story of her traveling to Mexico to pursue a ‘gender selection’ treatment in a bid to have a baby girl. There was the story of her returning to television and being in talks to star in next year’s series of Strictly Come Dancing. There was a story about her mansion being flooded as a result of Storm Lorenzo.

The Sun ran each of the stories and touted them as exclusives. The story about the flooding now includes the following disclaimer: “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.”

With only one person having access to her Instagram Stories, Rooney was quickly able to ascertain the identity of the mole. On Wednesday, she presented her findings by way of a screenshotted statement posted on Twitter and Instagram.

“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,” the statement began.

She explained what she had been up to for the past five months and how she had ferreted out the culprit. Like a prepubescent science student, she carefully detailed the apparatus, the method, and the results. Then she delivered the bombshell of bombshells.

“I have saved and screenshotted all the original stories which clearly show just one person has viewed them,” she wrote. “It’s ……..Rebekah Vardy’s account.”

The suspense! The drama! The pregnant pause as though she was Dermot O’Leary announcing the winner of The X Factor! Rooney had revealed herself to be a private investigator par excellence as well as a skilled storyteller. Needless to say, Twitter lapped it up. She was quickly christened Wagatha Christie and became the subject of countless adoring tweets and memes.

Rebekah Vardy, meanwhile, scrambled to put out her side of the story. Approximately half an hour after Coleen released her statement, Vardy replied to her. “As I have just said to you on the phone, I wish you had called me if you thought this,” she wrote. (That sound you hear is tabloid editors across Britain banging their heads against the wall for not having had the foresight to bug Rebekah Vardy’s phone.)

Vardy stated that she has never spoken to a journalist about Coleen Rooney and pointed out that the “various journalists who have asked me to over the years” can vouch for her. Because if there is anyone you want vouching for your character, it’s tabloid journalists who ring around looking for salacious stories on footballer’s wives.

She went on to claim that “various people” have had access to her Instagram account over the years, presumably insinuating that any of these people could in fact be the snake. “I’m not being funny but I don’t need the money, what would I gain from selling stories on you?” she added.

Vardy, who is pregnant with her fifth child, said that she was “disgusted” at having to deny the allegations and reiterated that she wished Coleen had picked up the phone before publicly indicting her. “You should have called me the first time this happened,” she wrote, before signing off with a broken heart emoji.

So who is telling the truth here?

Coleen Rooney is allegedly sitting on a trove of screenshots that she claims show Rebekah Vardy was the lone viewer of her Instagram Stories, which is pretty damning evidence. That said, Rebekah Vardy is probably not lying when she says that various people have had access to her Instagram account over the years. After all, she has 395,000 followers and counting. It stands to reason that assistants and management could have access to her account.

What is notable, however, is the fact that The Sun appears to have carried a number of favourable stories about Rebekah Vardy recently. In August, the paper ran an exclusive interview with her in which she discussed her upbringing, postpartum depression, and the public’s perception of her. A few weeks later, the paper was the first to announce that she was expecting her fifth child. In September, they published exclusive photos of Rebekah and Jamie Vardy looking “loved-up in the sea” in Dubai.

Compare this to the newspaper’s recent coverage of Coleen Rooney. “Selfish Coleen will be the Roon of Wayne’s football career,” reads one headline. “Well-heeled Coleen Rooney snapped in £1,000 Chanel trainers with £4,000 handbag after move back to UK,” reads another. That’s before you get to the false stories Coleen planted about herself.

None of this definitively proves that Rebekah Vardy is the unnamed source behind the stories about Coleen Rooney. Perhaps Vardy is telling the truth and it really was an assistant gone rogue.

But when she asks what a wealthy public figure would have to gain from passing on stories about an acquaintance to a journalist, the answer is simple. Of course it isn’t about money. It’s about ensuring that you’re not the one who is being labeled “selfish” or judged for spending money on designer trainers. In a country where journalists have been known to resort to any means necessary to dig up dirt on celebrity targets, it pays to be an ally of the tabloid press.

It’s likely this story will continue to play out for days to come, much to the delight of those seeking some respite from Brexit. God willing, Coleen Rooney will release the screenshots. In the meantime, all parties involved would do well to live by the words of the great philosopher Jamie Vardy: “Chat shit get banged.”