Wagatha Christie: What happened to Caroline Watt?
Last year, we had the dramatisation of the 2022 Wagatha Christie libel case with Channel 4's Vardy v Rooney: A Courtroom Drama, and now the inevitable documentary lifting the lid on the saga has arrived in the form of Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story on Disney+.
For those who have been rubbernecking the war of the so-called WAGs since Coleen Rooney's first social media post in 2019, in which she accused Rebekah Vardy of leaking details from her private Instagram account to the press (an allegation she swiftly denied), the new three-part docuseries doesn't hold many new revelations on the case.
That is, aside from the fact that Coleen's husband Wayne Rooney was so wrapped up in the libel case that he considered enrolling in law school. "It was interesting. I do like crime documentaries," he admitted, with a sheepish smile.
As the docuseries draws to a close, Coleen seems prepared to move on from the saga. "I can now focus on everything that is important to me," she tells the Disney+ cameras. "We all make mistakes in life.
"When someone holds their hands up and says I've done wrong, you can forgive and you can move on. But she is still denying and still saying it wasn't her, so it makes it a hard thing to do."
While the judge in the libel case ruled that Vardy had been the source of the leak, she has continued to strongly deny this.
The documentary does end on something of a question mark, as you wonder what might come next for its central players – particularly Vardy's then-agent, Caroline Watt.
At one point in the trial (via The Guardian), Vardy told the court that she had come to the realisation she may have been "betrayed" by Watt, and Rooney's lawyers accused Vardy of "throwing her under a bus".
The judge in the case ultimately ruled it was "likely" Vardy and Watt had passed information to The Sun newspaper.
Watt, who did not take part in the docuseries, was absent from the High Court trial due to illness. However, she was mentioned in evidence during the trial, and it was Watt's phone that went over the side of a boat in the North Sea, losing a crucial piece of evidence for the case to Davy Jones' locker.
Where is Caroline Watt now?
Caroline Watt and Rebekah Vardy began working together in 2015, after Rebekah's husband Jamie rose to fame as a striker for Leicester City.
She was credited with raising Rebekah's public profile, securing opportunities like her 2018 stint in the I'm a Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! jungle.
While Watt's current situation is unknown, another of her clients, Nicola McLean, said she was standing by her amid the fallout from the case.
According to the Daily Mail, McLean said during a TV appearance: "She's known lots of things about people that haven't ended up in the papers, so I don't think we should start dragging her through this as well. She's in a very fragile state of mind."
During an August 2022 TV interview, Rebekah Vardy said that she had spoken to Watt "a couple of times" when asked if they were still in touch.
A few weeks later, it was reported that Watt was in talks to share her side of the saga in a one-off documentary, after offers from major streamers.
An insider close to Watt told The Sun that she "never courted fame" and "to find herself at the centre of the case, the subject of ridicule and criticism, was extremely difficult to take".
Whether there is indeed more Wagatha Christie yarn to unspool from the other camp remains to be seen – for now at least.
Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story is available to stream on Disney+.
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