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Some too-late advice

I watched and enjoyed Vardy v Rooney, a dramatisation of the Wagatha Christie trial that took place last year. It seems very likely to me that Rebekah Vardy had been leaking Coleen Rooney’s private information, and it seems to be generally accepted that she did. I wondered if Vardy had made a cost-benefit calculation at any point of the routes available to her. Something like:

Option 1 – Deny everything

  • Cost if successful: A lot of work pretending, keeping story straight and engaging in verbal acrobatics towards explaining what happened. Lose agent and friend Caroline Watt as have to throw her under the bus. (2 points.)
  • Cost if unsuccessful: Everybody thinks you’re both a bare-faced liar and a bad person for exposing someone who trusted you to the stress of leaked stories in the tabloids, lose Caroline Watt and you have to pay Rooney’s legal bills. (3 points.)
  • Benefit if successful: Reputation restored, maybe more opportunities to promote yourself, milking the experience for all it’s worth. (3 points.)
  • Benefit if unsuccessful: ‘Any publicity is good publicity’? (1 points.)

The best possible outcome of this option would be worth 1 point (gain 3 points at the cost of 2). The worst outcome puts you 2 points in the red. So it’s a high-risk strategy with slim upsides if you ask me.

Option 2 – Come clean and apologise

  • Cost if successful: Have to eat humble bread. (2 points.)
  • Cost if unsuccessful: Everybody thinks you’re a bad person for betraying a friend, etc, see above. (2 points.)
  • Benefit if successful: People may forgive you and sympathise and you will get a boost of promotability, positive press and opportunities for interviews around regrets, changing yourself, honesty, difficult conversations etc. You don’t have to keep explaining and remembering the details of your lie. Keep Caroline Watt as a friend and agent. Caroline Watt doesn’t have to chuck her phone into the North Sea. (3 points.)
  • Benefit if unsuccessful: Don’t have to keep explaining etc. Keep Caroline Watt. At least have some self-respect. (2 points.)

Here, you stand to gain 1 point again if you’re successful, but stand to lose +/-0 points in the worst case scenario.

Hmm. It’s possible Rebekah Vardy did do this exercise but assigned the points differently…

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