Disney+ has rebranded its upcoming documentary about Coleen Rooney after Rebekah Vardy trademarked the term “Wagatha Christie.”
Coleen, 37, won her legal battle against Rebekah, 41, after she accused her of leaking stories about Coleen to the press.
According to The Sun, the documentary will now be called Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story, although the title still references her detective skills.
The carefully worded title is unlikely to spark further litigation with Rebekah since the word “Christie” is not used.
A source said, “Disney lawyers are happy with the new title, even though it appears to be close to the phrase Rebekah owns the right to and almost certainly would have stopped her from using it.”
Series: Disney+ has retitled its upcoming documentary about Coleen Rooney after Rebekah Vardy trademarked the term “Wagatha Christie.”
Dispute: Coleen, 37, won her legal battle against Rebekah, 41, (pictured) after she accused her of leaking stories about Coleen to the press
“If she still feels it’s too close to ‘Wagatha Christie,’ she would need to take issue with the streaming giant’s legal team, which is one of the most formidable in the entertainment world.”
“This will be a relief to Coleen, who was faced with the prospect of not being able to nod the exact sentence her investigative skills crafted.”
Although “Wagatha Christie” couldn’t be used in the title, Coleen can still speak the phrase in the documentary if she chooses.
Rob McLaughlin, attorney and intellectual property expert, told The Telegraph, “The words ‘Wagatha Christie’ can be said as loudly on a television show as they can be written in a newspaper article.”
“A trademark registration does not give its owner the right to prevent all use of the mark except in situations where doing so would cause consumer confusion or damage the reputation or distinctiveness of the mark.”
Coleen spoke about the trial and the documentary in her bombastic interview with British Vogue recently.
Speaking of the upcoming three-part series, she said, “It stirred up a lot of emotions.” I felt like everyone but me was talking about it. And it’s my story to tell.’
Coleen also branded Rebekah “weird” and said her “nasty” lyrics read in court made her sick.
Title: The documentary will now be called Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story, with the title still referencing her detective skills
Trademarks: The carefully worded title is unlikely to spark further litigation with Rebekah since the word “Christie” is not used
She explained how she hatched a plan to thwart the person who leaked stories by placing false stories on her personal account and only making them visible to Rebekah’s account but not telling anyone what she was up to, not even one a lawyer.
Coleen said, “I feel like a lot of people still don’t understand what happened, from beginning to end.” But what I said in that post, I still stand by today.
WAG announced that their plan to publicly share the leaker on Instagram in October 2019 was entirely their own.
She said, ‘That night I started thinking about what I was going to do.’ I just wanted these stories to stop.’
But did she start the notes app at 3 a.m. the old-fashioned way?
She laughed. ‘NO. I like pen and paper – actually a pencil and eraser so I can erase it. So I started writing down what I wanted to say and then published it the next morning. That was the start of something I never expected.”
Coleen said she didn’t tell anyone what she was up to. ‘NO. [The part] My friends and family were the most surprised at me [for was] publish the post.’
She didn’t show it to Wayne, her mother, or, contrary to popular belief, a lawyer. She woke up, typed it up and put it on the internet. Then she took Kai and one of his friends indoor skydiving.
Feeling empowered and relieved that she had kept her plans to go public secret, she said, “If I want to do sunnin – and I know I will be prevented from doing sunnin – then I just do it additional. I didn’t want anyone telling me not to do it.’
Speaking of Becky, who is married to 36-year-old footballer Jamie Vardy, Coleen said, “I felt like she was in the same world as me.” She was in the public eye. I thought she would protect herself from such things.
“We were able to bond because our husbands had played for England together. But she doesn’t live around here. She wasn’t a friend. I’ve never socialized with her.’
Coleen admitted she was scared when Rebekah said she would consult lawyers. Rooney was instantly startled.
She had not pre-legalized her testimony and had assumed it was permissible to pass on what had happened to her.
She said, “You see social media people swearing at people in such a nasty way, and I thought I wasn’t that nasty.” But her stomach turned.
Adding, “I’ve never been in a legal case so it was scary for me.” What a horrible experience. “The thing I feared most was going to court.”
Speaking up: Coleen opened up about the trial and the documentary in her sizzling recent interview with British Vogue
Coleen was both concerned and angry at being “dragged in court,” saying, “It was hard for me not to let it show.”
“It was so weird that first day actually sitting on a bench together. It was so difficult in that courtroom… especially watching her on the stand. It was pretty painful. I felt uncomfortable.
“Obviously she went through that. “I thought, ‘Why did you put yourself in this position?’ It wasn’t pretty to look at. To this day she can’t understand why Vardy brought her to court. She’s ‘strange’.”
The court awarded Coleen the costs and £800,000 of the total amount due was payable immediately.
Rebekah is said to have scored one of the worst own goals in British legal history after a Supreme Court judge dismissed her testimony as “evasive or lacking credibility” and accused her of intentionally deleting WhatsApp messages central to the case.
Her agent Caroline Watt was also accused of deliberately throwing her phone into the North Sea. During the trial, some of Rebekah’s personal texts were read to her Caroline.
Coleen said, “The texting made me sick.” They were just another level. As I read them, I thought: the meanness and hatred they harbored for someone they don’t even know.’
Though Coleen doesn’t seem to harbor any ill will towards Rebekah, she said, “I’m a forgiving and forgetting person, I can’t care that things go on like this forever.” But this is obviously very different.”
“You can’t go wrong if you tell the truth.”
Wagatha Christie timeline: how the war between Coleen and Rebekah unfolded
September 2017 to October 2019 – The Sun runs a series of articles about Coleen, including how she traveled to Mexico to address the “sex selection” treatment of babies, her plan to revive her television career, and the flooding her basement.
October 9, 2019 – Coleen took to social media to accuse Rebekah of selling stories from her personal Instagram account to the tabloids.
Coleen says she spent five months trying to figure out who was sharing information about her and her family from the posts she made on her personal social media page.
After spreading a series of “fake” stories and using an elimination process, Coleen claims they were viewed by Rebekah’s Instagram account.
Rebekah, who was pregnant with her fifth child at the time, denies the allegations and says various people have had access to her Instagram over the years.
She claims to be “so upset” by Coleen’s accusation, later adding, “I thought she was my girlfriend but she absolutely blew me away.”
The public dispute made headlines around the world, and the hashtag #WagathaChristie is trending.
How it all began: On October 9, 2019, Coleen Rooney, now 36, accused Rebekah Vardy, 40, of leaking “false stories” about her to the press in an Instagram post (above).
February 13, 2020 – In a tearful appearance on ITV’s ‘Loose Women’, Rebekah says the stress of the argument caused her to have severe anxiety attacks and “ended up in hospital three times”. Coleen says in a statement that she does not want to “engage in any further public debate.”
Shortly after Coleen’s public accusation, Rebekah – who was pregnant at the time and vacationing in Dubai – denied any involvement (above)
June 23, 2020 – It turns out that Rebekah has filed a defamation case against Coleen.
Rebekah’s attorneys allege she “suffered extreme distress, hurt, fear and embarrassment as a result of the post’s publication and the events that followed.”
19-20 November 2020 – The defamation case takes place for the first time in London before the High Court. A judge concludes that in her October 2019 submission, Coleen “clearly identified” Rebekah as “guilty of a serious and persistent breach of trust.”
Judge Warby concluded that the “natural and ordinary” meaning of the posts was that Rebekah “had regularly and frequently abused her status as a trusted follower of Coleen’s personal Instagram account by secretly informing The Sun about Coleen’s private posts and.” stories informed”.
February 8-9, 2022 – A series of sensitive messages between Rebekah and her agent Caroline Watt – which Coleen’s lawyers claim relates to her – are revealed at a preliminary court hearing.
The court was told Rebekah was not referring to Coleen when she called someone a “bad bitch” in a conversation with Ms Watt.
Coleen’s lawyers are seeking more information from the WhatsApp messages, but the court is told Ms Watt’s phone fell in the North Sea after a boat she was on struck a wave before more information could be extracted from it .
Feb. 14 – Coleen is denied permission to file a lawsuit in the Supreme Court against Ms. Watt for misappropriation of private information, to be heard alongside the defamation suit. A Supreme Court Justice, Ms. Justice Steyn, says the bid was made too late and earlier avenues to pursue the lawsuit were missed.
April 13 – Ms Watt is unable to testify orally in the forthcoming defamation trial, the Supreme Court is told as the case is remanded for another hearing.
The agent revokes permission to use her testimony and withdraws her waiver, which would have allowed Sun journalists to say if she was a source of the allegedly leaked stories.
April 29 – Rebekah “appears to accept” her agent was the source of alleged leaked stories, Coleen’s attorney David Sherborne tells the Supreme Court. He argues that new testimony provided by Rebekah suggests Ms Watt was the source, but Rebekah claims she “neither authorized nor condoned it”.
Rebekah’s attorney Hugh Tomlinson says the statement does not contain any “changes to the case being brought” because her legal team did not communicate with Ms Watt.
From May 10th – The process takes seven days