the times | Tuesday May 17 2022 3
times2
Coleen Rooney, left,
and Rebekah Vardy
outside the Royal
Courts of Justice
last weekWayne,
trussed
into his
suit and
tie, looked
like a
sunburnt
dumpling
Real Housewives with terrifyingly
high stakes. Just like reality TV, you
knew your enjoyment was good
neither for you nor for the future of
humanity. But who can forget her
wearing the man from Del Monte’s
suit in front of the Pyramids? The
pith helmet for her African tour?
When she planted a tree wearing
a $4,000 skirt? The yellow,
Belle-from-Beauty-and-the-Beast
dress at Blenheim? The fact she
brought the Obamas a gift when they
had to leave the White House?
At the time these seemed like
cries for help; with hindsight,there’s a certain knowing
showmanship — and it’s one that
never quite got the recognition it
deserved, perhaps.
Mrs Trump was asked on Sunday
why she had never been on the
cover of Vogue. Michelle
Obama occupied that
hallowed slot three times
during her husband’s tenure
and Jill Biden featured last
June, six months after the
vice-president, Kamala
Harris. Hillary Clinton
also sat for the magazine,
in 1998.
“They’re biased,”
Melania said. “But I had
more important things
to do in the White House
than being on the cover
of Vogue.”
It’s a zinger of an answer,
but a new biography of
Vogue’s editor-in-chief, Anna
Wintour, by the fashion
journalist Amy Odell illuminates
further. It tells of a meeting
held at Condé Nast HQ the
morning after Trump’s
election win, in which staffers
recall seeing their leader cry.
Given Wintour’s nickname is
“Nuclear”, this rare show of
emotion is proof that Melania
didn’t stand a chance.
The thing is, MT would
make an amazing Vogue
cover, as even the dyed-in-
the-wool Dems readership
would agree: part hate-read,
part show trial, all gilt-
trimmed and fabulous. It’s
not that I miss her as
such, more that I’d be
very up for watching a
spin-off series that
took me further into
her bonkers world of
gold furniture and
ugly NFTs based
on her husband’s
time in office.
Working
title: “I really
don’t care,
do you?”J
ust when you thought you’d
managed to catch up with
all the people you hadn’t
seen since before the
pandemic, up pops
someone you’d completely
forgotten about. Not the
colleague who switched
jobs in lockdown or the friend who
moved to the country. Not even
the former classmate still posting
antivax messages on Facebook.
No, someone who used to fascinate
and frustrate in equal measure, who
was talked of as much with pity as
distaste: it’s... Melania Trump.
Yes, she of the perma blow-dry and
cheekbones sculpted in the same
G-force wind tunnel used to
construct her husband’s hair. The
enigmatic model turned first lady,
whose taste in Christmas decorations
led many sensible people to wonder
whether her promo video of them
was in fact a hostage code not
dissimilar to Sergeant Brody’s
finger-semaphore in Homeland.
Whose obedient yet sphinxlike
uxorial presence at times seemed
embattled and at others responded to
humanitarian issues with a Zara
coat that had scrawled on its
back: “I really don’t care,
do you?”
Post Covid, she seems of a
different era — although,
chillingly, she and the rest
of Team Fanta might
well be on manoeuvres
to return themselves to
the front line and us to a
state of yet more panicky
doom-scrolling.
There was speculation
that the great climbdown
from “stolen election”
to “at home in Mar-a-
Lago” might be a chance
for her to leave —
Melania Unchained! —
but an interview with Fox
News at the weekend
suggests her wagon is still
very much hitched to his
nibs’s toxic clown car.
“Everybody is doing
very well,” she said and,
in response to the
question of returning
to the White House,
“Never say never.”
It’s difficult to talk
about Melania
because doing so
feels like invoking
Candyman: say the
name too many times
and you know who
will be back with
those tiny hands on
the levers of power.
But the spectacle of
her, all feline eyeshadow
and dead cat fashion
choices (this time sporting
the sort of beige military
jacket last seen on
Colonel Gaddafi), was
nevertheless a sight for
sore eyes.
Melania’s presence on the
world stage was a sort ofMelania’s back! But for
how long? Harriet Walker
Her wagon is
still hitched to
his nibs’s toxic
clown car
Melania Trump in 2017PRESS ASSOCIATION; MEGA AGENCYThe case isn’t about betrayal, as the
lawyers have argued. It’s about a world
of wealth, privilege and boredom,
fuelled by jealousy and paranoia and
seen through the poisonous filter of
social media. In a nutshell, Rooney
planted stories on her Instagram
account, made sure that only Vardy
could see them and, when they duly
ended up in the paper, concluded
publicly and dramatically that Vardy
was responsible. Vardy sued for libel.
The case thus far seems to have
established that it might have been her
agent who was behind the leaks, but
alas she is too unwell to give evidence
and her mobile phone is at the bottom
of the North Sea. And so here we were
on a chilly Monday morning in May,
with Tomlinson dismantling Rooney,
Rooney politely addressing the judge
and Wayne scratching his crotch.
“I want to ask you now about Soho
Farmhouse, Mrs Rooney,” Tomlinson
said. Whole minutes went by in
discussion of her trip there with some
girlfriends, plus another picture she
posted of the patio at her hotel on
holiday somewhere or other. The
Vardy team gasped melodramatically
when Rooney admitted that one of her
friends was having problems with
leaks from her account as well, the
inference being that this friendship
group has more leaks than a colander.
The plot thickens. The world
continues to turn. The terrible backlog
of cases waiting for their day in court
gets longer. Did Rooney delete
evidence? Did Vardy? Does Rooney
think that Vardy is fame-hungry and,
if so, so what? Wayne stifled a yawn.
The court is referred to bundle D3,
page 3,178. Lever arch files were
opened and closed. Sherborne’s
bouffant hair started to wilt under
his wig.
We moved on to Rooney not going
to Mexico to choose the sex of her
next baby, a fake story that she was
nevertheless happy to have published
because she thinks it’s evidence
against Vardy. Wayne chewed his
cheek ruminatively. Tomlinson moved
on to reports of “apparent crisis in
your relationship with your husband”.
Wayne’s leg started to twitch.
“Things have happened in my life
and they get publicised,” Rooney said.
“We have dealt with it as a couple and
as a family.” Wayne looked at his
fingernails. Bundle D1, or possibly D3,
revealed that Vardy sent a message to
Rooney sending hugs and offering
support, which the latter thought was
“suspicious”. When Rooney did her big
reveal about Vardy on social media,
Vardy was pregnant and therefore
vulnerable, Tomlinson argued.
Rooney, a mother of four, looked
utterly nonplussed at the idea that
being pregnant makes you vulnerable.
The cross-examination turns to the
identity of a newspaper gossip
columnist called the “Secret Wag”.
Vardy doodled on a notebook. Why
did Rooney “expose” Vardy as the
leaker? Why didn’t she confront her in
private? Because, she said, she thought
Vardy’s friends in the press would
somehow twist it. Tomlinson pounced.
“You accepted that other people
have access to her account and you
could not exclude the possibility that
they were leaking,” he said. What the
law required was evidence and proof.
What she brought, Tomlinson
suggested, was “pure speculation”.
“I believed it was her,” she said
haplessly. “A lot of things added up
over time.”
“I am not a bad person,” she added
towards the end of her evidence,
adamant throughout that she never
wanted to be in court. “I’ve never done
anything to them, for them to monitor
me and stalk me.”
Whoever the judge decides is the
winner, in many ways, both sides have
already lost. In the case of Vardy v
Rooney, the only people laughing are
the lawyers.