Rebekah Vardy places on a courageous face as she enjoys a day trip along with her children in Blackpool – following rival Coleen Rooney’s I’m A Celeb success and ITV’s ‘vow to make the WAG an enormous TV star’

Rebekah Vardy enjoyed a day of festival fun with her children at Blackpool’s Christmas Fair on Sunday, just hours before rival Coleen Rooney finished second in I’m A Celeb – seven years after she came ninth. 

The Wagatha Christie sleuth, 38, narrowly missed out on the top spot to McFly’s Danny Jones, also 38, with ITV now reportedly vowing to make both finalists huge TV stars. 

Rebekah, who shares Olivia, four, Finley, seven, and 10-year-old Sofia with husband Jamie Vardy, 37, as well as Megan and Taylor, from previous relationships, plastered on a huge smile as she joined the family on the fun fair rides.

The 42-year-old, who appeared in the ITV show back in 2017, wrapped up warm in a brown padded coat which she teamed with a £400 black Louis Vuitton beanie hat.

Rebekah and her children appeared to be having a wonderful time and after numerous rides enjoyed hot dogs as they explored the festive stalls. 

Coleen is poised to become ITV’s new golden girl and is allegedly being lined up for a £1million TV deal with the channel. 

A source reported to The Sun: ‘Coleen’s return to public life following the Wagatha Christie trial was carefully orchestrated — and it has more than paid off.

‘When she was in the jungle, she was being touted as ITV’s next Holly Willoughby and the offers have already started flooding in. But there is one deal on the table that has really piqued her team’s interest.

‘Given Coleen’s love of the Loose Women show too, the team want her secured on their guest roster, with a view to finding something more permanent for her.’

The insider went on to add that in addition to TV deals, ‘lifestyle and nutritional brands’ and ‘high street retailers’ have been trying to entice her with lucrative contracts, noting: ‘The sky’s the limit’.   

During her exit interview Coleen made a vide jibe at Rebekah as she spoke to Ant and Dec about her time in the Jungle about her her detective skills. 

Coleen was famously dubbed Wagatha Christie after deducing that stories about her were being leaked to The Sun newspaper by… Rebekah Vardy’s account. 

Discussing her sleuthing skills during the final, Declan Donnelly mused: We did try pulling the wool over your eyes with a few little tricks but you always seemed to sniff us out… she’s always one step ahead of us.’ 

Ant McPartlin added: ‘She’s good at this… have you always had that instinct?’ 

Flashing a knowing smile, Coleen alluded to her Wagatha Christie name as she replied: ‘Yeah I have, I’m quite good at sniffing things out!’ 

Raising her eyebrows, she continued: Yeah, I can weigh people up well…’ 

During her time in the Jungle, Coleen clocked that Danny Jones had lied about spotting a koala in a bid to keep them distracted while he was on a secret mission. 

The mother-of-four was also the first one to work out that Maura Higgins, Revered Richard Coles and Dean McCullough were lying about living in squalor in The Junkyard. 

Having confronted the trio, Dean was quick to mention her famous nickname, exclaiming: ‘Wagatha Christie strikes again!’  

It’s been five years since the start of the Wagatha Christie case – the surreal, undeniably petty, yet irresistible legal soap opera that captivated the nation. 

Few could have predicted a row that began with a single Instagram post could have metamorphosed into one of the 21st century’s most extraordinary celebrity sagas. 

Rebekah originally sued Coleen for libel over claims she had been leaking stories to the Press, but Coleen would go on to triumph over her bitter foe after a judge declared in 2022 that her claim was ‘substantially true’. 

The ruling would not be the end of this modern version of Jarndyce v Jarndyce (the interminable legal case imagined by Charles Dickens) with a dispute over legal costs dubbed ‘WAG War II’ leading to Coleen netting another victory. 

Last month, Rebekah launched an appeal against having to pay Coleen up to £1.8million in legal costs.

Barristers for the women battled in the High Court over how much Rebekah should pay in costs after losing a libel action in 2022 and her legal team confirmed she is challenging the judge’s ruling. 

In a three-day hearing, lawyers for Rebekah – the wife of Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy – argued that the sum should be reduced due to what they said was ‘serious misconduct’ by Coleen’s legal team.

But Senior Costs Judge Andrew Gordon-Saker found ‘on balance and, I have to say, only just’, that Coleen’s legal team had not committed wrongdoing, and therefore it was ‘not an appropriate case’ to reduce the amount of money that Rebekah should pay.

Court documents show that Rebekah launched an appeal bid, which her lawyers Kingsley Napley confirmed related to the misconduct ruling.

Rebekah and Coleen’s rivalry shows no sign of thawing, with Rebekah making several disparaging remarks about her former friend relating to her time in the Jungle. 

Since Coleen entered the jungle, Rebekah has made no secret of what she thinks about her nemesis, branding her ‘dull’ while also wanting her to eat a bull’s penis.

Rebekah also claimed her rival Coleen was ‘getting it easy’ in the I’m A Celebrity camp, in comparison to her own stint on the ITV show.

The star shared that this year’s line up were being rewarded with luxuries far too early in the series, insisting she ‘hardly got any food’ during her first week in the camp.

She said: ‘This year’s campmates are having it so easy compared to when I did the show. We hardly got any food for the first week, let alone home comforts.

‘I do not begrudge them getting their luxuries so early because you need that in the jungle to keep you going. But ITV are sure not making them work for it. Cranky campmates make for the best TV.’

In the end, it seems Coleen had the last laugh as she finished in second place during the live final. 

In comparison, Rebekah was the third campmate to be voted out of her season in 2017.