The ex-husband of Rebekah Vardy has branded her ‘fame hungry’ who will say and do anything for money.
Steve Clarke, 59 who was married to Vardy for just over a year, said she is desperate to stay in the limelight and is ‘100 per cent’ jealous of her WAG rival Coleen Rooney.
He told MailOnline: ‘She is just desperate to stay relevant and keep her name in the news.
‘It is quite pathetic what she is doing by commenting on I’m a Celebrity’ but it just shows she is so jealous of Coleen. I can guarantee you 100 million per cent she just wants to keep people seeing her picture and her name.’
He added: ‘When you watch Coleen, she is all smiles and happy. People like her, but when Rebekah was in the jungle people were talking about her resting bitch face. She just can’t stand that people like Colleen and the public have no sympathy for her.’
Mr Clarke was speaking as Vardy reignited a war of words with her WAG rival Coleen in a scathing, I’m a Celebrity column for a national newspaper in which she has made a number of barbed comments.
Vardy wrote that she hoped Rooney is forced to ‘eat penis or humble pie’ in the jungle before more recently slamming BBCRadio 1 presenter Dean McCullough, for ‘cosying up’ to Rooney on the show in another blistering attack.
Vardy, 42 also branded hosts Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly as ‘two small minded men’ while also describing Coleen ‘the gift that keeps on giving’ after her canoe capsized during the celebrities’ race to the camp.
Steve Clarke, 59, was married to Rebekah Vardy for just over a year
Rebekah Vardy and her husband Jamie Vardy depart the Royal Courts of Justice, May 2022
Mr Clarke said his ex-wife is desperate to stay in the limelight and is ‘100 per cent’ jealous of her WAG rival Coleen Rooney (pictured)
Mr Clarke, from Banbury, Oxfordshire, had an acrimonious split from the Rebekah in 2005. They met in 2001 when she worked as a secretary at his timeshare company. He owned a fleet of expensive cars, including a Ferrari.
They lived in Oxford, London and later Cyprus.
He said: ‘When we moved to Cyprus, she wanted the best of everything. A nanny for her daughters, a new car and a bigger and better villa. She always wanted more.
‘I do feel sorry for Jamie Vardy. If he earned £1m a month she would spend £1.5m. She really is a nightmare.’
He was Vardy’s second husband after her marriage to electrician Mark Godden.
Now a director of a health and wellness company, Mr Clarke claimed that Vardy is being driven by jealousy of Rooney.
He said: ‘You can see how Rebekah is just so jealous of Coleen and is in her shadow. She must hate that Coleen has made a name for herself and not just being Mrs Wayne Rooney.
‘She is her own person, while Rebekah is only relevant because she is married to a Premier League footballer. That is why she has trademarked the name Wagatha Christie because even though she lost she can make some money of it.’
He admitted that there is no love lost between him and his ex with Vardy alleging he was abusive – a claim he vehemently denies.
He said she suspects she is doing a running commentary on the I’m a Celebrity show for money.
Mr Clarke told the MailOnline that he feels ‘sorry’ for her new husband Jamie, saying: ‘She really is a nightmare’
According to her ex-husband, Vardy ‘is just so jealous of Coleen and is in her shadow’
Wayne Rooney and his wife Coleen (pictured on October 7) met as teenagers on their council estate of Croxteth in Liverpool
Rebekah Vardy and ex-premier League star Dennis Wise on I’m A Celebrity in 2017
He added: ‘Let’s face it she has a huge legal bill to pay so she needs the money. Knowing her she will try to string out paying Coleen for as long as she can. She was humiliated in the trial and the public can see right through her and what she is about.’
Vardy controversially once claimed that Mr Clarke ‘forced’ her into doing a newspaper interview about a one night stand she had with pop star Peter Andre. He was contacted by Rooney’s legal team during the now famous ‘Wagatha Christie’ trial but refused to get involved.
Speaking about their marriage, Vardy she said: ‘That quickly became a horrible relationship — I was scared of him. He’d tell me what to do, where to be and how to act.
‘I’d had a night with Peter Andre at the end of my first marriage and stupidly told him. He wanted the money so made me go public with my story. I felt awful.’
They had an on-off relationship and wed when she was 23 and eight months pregnant by another man.
Weeks later, she had eldest daughter Megan.
Vardy said: ‘As soon as she was born, he made us move abroad. He claimed he owed money and wanted us to run away to Cyprus. It went downhill from there. He became violent towards me. He cheated, he lied. It lasted ten months before I escaped back to the UK with my baby after he cheated on me.’
Weeks later Clarke was sentenced to two years’ jail after his conviction for causing death by reckless driving in a head-on crash which killed a dad and grandad.
Mrs Vardy went on to have son Taylor with footballer Luke Foster before meeting Jamie, 37, who she married in May 2016.