‘My daughter calls Jamie Daddy’: Rebekah Vardy on family life with football’s newest star… and why she trusts him on nights out with the lads
Becky talks finding her Mr Right and why she's not everyone's cup of tea
REBEKAH Vardy is living a life most young women can only dream of.
Luxurious mansion? Tick. Closet full of designer handbags and dresses? Tick. Diamond engagement ring the size of a grape? Tick.
And, of course, a new hubby in the form of Leicester City footballer and all-round man-of-the-moment Jamie Vardy – double tick.
Together, they are football’s hottest new couple.
But of course there’s a flip side – intense speculation around the bitter rift that meant Jamie’s parents, who branded Becky “that woman”, refused to attend last week’s lavish wedding, and a gleefully snide interest in the fact she has three children by three different men.
Our shoot and interview take place one week before the wedding, and it’s clear Becky, 34, doesn’t want to ruin the mood by addressing the family feud.
But she hints that she’ll tell her side of the story one day.
However, what she is keen to do is to set the record straight on what life in their blended family – Becky has 18-month-old daughter Sofia with Jamie, and son Taylor, six, and daughter Megan, 11, from two previous relationships, while Jamie has five-year-old daughter Ella with his ex Emma Daggett – is really like.
“It’s difficult entering into a new relationship when you have kids because you want to protect them, but your kids are so much happier when you as parents are happier,” Becky says.
“[Because] Jamie has a child from a previous relationship, I think it made it a lot easier to see where each of us was coming from, and we were on the same wavelength. It is difficult [entering into a new relationship] when you’ve got kids with someone else.”
Aside from being incredibly talented on the pitch – Jamie almost single-handedly took 5,000/1 underdogs Leicester City to Premier League victory – she says her other half is a brilliant father, who treats all the children “like they are his own” and is very much at the centre of the household.
“They get on fantastically with Jamie and it’s an amazing thing. Taylor calls him Jamie or Vards – that’s usually after some of the lads have been round. Megs calls him Daddy. That’s never been something I have encouraged or discouraged, and I let her do whatever she feels comfortable with.
“He is caring and has all the patience in the world. Every so often I can get a bit frustrated, but he is just so chilled out and will take time to correct things.
“Sometimes I clash with my eldest and he’ll go and speak to her, then she will come and apologise. He has a very calming way with the kids and mellows them.”
Ask her about any of the stick she’s received for her relationship splits, and Becky waves a proverbial middle finger in the air in response.
“There are so many different reasons why relationships fail, and you get to a point where you can’t just stay together for the kids. A blended family is never easy. Relationships fail and that is just part of life.
“I think as long as you provide stability and you are happy, then your children bounce off your vibes. I think if your kids can see that you are unhappy, for whatever reason, then it makes them unhappy.
“Obviously at the age that they were, it was a bit confusing for them at the beginning. But the older they got, the more they understood that sometimes adults don’t get along any more. It doesn’t necessarily mean they hate each other and I have never put that on my kids.”
Catapulted to celebrity practically overnight, Becky has managed to remain remarkably unphased by it all.
She still proudly wears high street, even if it is teamed with a £225 pair of Isabel Marant trainers, breaks protocol by happily admitting she’s a fan of Botox, and sheepishly confesses she has no idea if the £2,500 Chanel bag Jamie bought her is the latest model or not.
“I go to the gym without make-up on, pick up my dog poo from the garden and only get my nails done when it’s absolutely necessary,” she says.
“I like to mix up my fashion. I don’t think you need to spend hundreds on an outfit to look good, as there are plenty of options on the high street.
“To be fair, I couldn’t justify it. It doesn’t last forever, and if we aren’t careful with finances, by the time we are 40… Well, it’s not always going
to be there, and you can’t take it for granted. At the end of the day I’m a mum and that’s my priority.”
The clue to how down-to-earth she is perhaps lies in her very normal – and sometimes difficult – upbringing.
Becky spent her early years growing up on a council estate in Witney, Oxfordshire, and was “pulled from pillar to post” after her parents split when she was nine.
It made her a self-declared “strong woman” who insists she wasn’t a WAG wannabe out to snare a footballer.
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In fact, she first met Jamie when she was working as an events planner and was hired to organise his 27th birthday party in January 2014 at The Viper Rooms nightclub in Sheffield.
She didn’t fancy him initially, and he pursued her before she eventually agreed to a date.
Two years on, Becky is now director of V9 Academy, Jamie’s football training academy for non-league players, as well as looking after the kids and keeping on top of the household chores at the couple’s £1million eight-bedroom mansion in Melton Mowbray, Leicester.
There hasn’t been a full-time nanny or cleaner added to the couple’s payroll since Jamie signed a new £75,000-a-week contract.
Becky admits to running any credit-card-busting purchases past Jamie before flexing the plastic and never “just goes mad” while out shopping. But for all her thrifty protests, it seems the odd extravagance does slip through the net.
The couple got hitched in a luxurious wedding bash in Peckforton Castle in Cheshire on May 25 with One Direction’s Louis Tomlinson flying in to serenade the happy couple.
Guests included Kasabian’s Serge Pizzorno, rapper Tinchy Stryder and X Factor winner Sam Bailey. Becky’s Caroline Castigliano frock was estimated to cost around £7,000.
It makes the £2,500 Balmain dress she wore to her hen party seem positively bargainous.
Although the price tag made her feel “physically sick”, it seems Jamie had other ideas, and Becky says he badgered her into the purchase (“he kept asking me whether I’d bought that f**king dress yet”).
But when it comes to the couple’s house, there isn’t a whiff of leopard- print chaise longues or his ‘n’ hers gold-plated thrones.
“We have nicknamed it the Fifty Shades of Grey house, but don’t worry, we don’t have a sex dungeon! It’s all nice shades of grey and we don’t have any extravagant wallpaper. The only loud shades are in the kids’ rooms. We do have a cinema projector, but it was there when we bought the house.”
There will surely be opportunities to splash the cash if they so desired with lucrative deals aplenty on the horizon.
There’s already a big screen offering of Jamie’s story in the making – with Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke touted to play Becky – plus a £250,000 autobiography in the pipeline.
But Becky insists that behind closed doors they are just an average family.
“Jamie is so caring – he is just a genuinely lovely person. He has got his flaws and isn’t perfect, like anyone. He’s a completely different person
at home to how he is on the pitch – easy-going, soft and gentle.”
A football fan since a young age, her eyes light up whenever she speaks about the former lower-league player and his chances of leading England to victory at the Euros in France.
“Leicester have had a fairy-tale win, so why can’t England?” she says.
She will juggle being a wife and mother aided by a part-time helper “who’s more like a grandma”. She’ll fly back and forth to every game, as she doesn’t want to disrupt her eldest children by taking them out of school.
It’s a mammoth commute, but just missing one of his games “creates anxiety”.
She even cut short her April hen weekend at 10am on the Sunday just so she could make the trip from Liverpool to Leicester to attend a Sunday match at the last minute.
But it’s not been Becky’s only sacrifice for Jamie’s career.
There’s the non-existent honeymoon, the wedding date re-arranged three times because of the Euros, and the mere 48 hours they got to spend together as man and wife before Jamie was back on the pitch for training.
“It’s hard for us to go on dates now because of the attention, but that’s to be expected. He doesn’t go to nightclubs and would much rather do stuff at home. He’s been there, done it and isn’t interested any more,” she says.
“I haven’t cracked the whip and said: ‘You can’t go.’ I trust him to go out. I think you get to a certain point [in life], and he’s so focused on football and being the best that he can, he doesn’t have time.
“We never, ever argue. I’ve got quite a fiery temperament, but we always manage to deflect arguments if a situation arises.”
Becky demonstrates one of Jamie’s deflection techniques during their regular FaceTime phone sessions – if he’s away, they speak two-three times a day without fail.
If she’s having a rant and a rave, he puts his phone face up and makes her “talk to the ceiling” until she calms down.
She admits she’s a “Marmite” character: “I’m outspoken and I’m not the sort of person to apologise for it.”
But it’s clear family means the world to her.
When speaking about herself, her answers are often short, sweet and very much to the point.
She rarely offers up more information than she decides she wants to give.
In fact, it’s only when opening up about her family that her guard starts to slip and she shows glimpses of vulnerability.
“Jamie always has time for the kids. Even if he’s knackered, he will make time after training and bathes Sofia every single night, dries her
and then gets her into her pyjamas.
“There is nothing ever too big or too small for him. He will take Taylor on the trampoline or do maths homework with Megan. He is
really intelligent, especially with general knowledge. I’m happy, the kids are happy, we’re really lucky and we don’t take it for granted.”
Of course, Jamie’s huge success means deciding whether or not to let their children – who are still on a modest pocket money of £2 or £3 weekly in return for household chores – into the spotlight or not.
“We want to make sure that the kids’ lives are as stable and normal as possible. You have to look at the pros and cons. If we decided we didn’t want them to be photographed, then it means we can’t be a normal family.
“Jamie has become very high-profile, but that shouldn’t affect our family life and how we have always been.
“One of the hardest decisions we’ve ever had to make was whether we would allow the kids on the Leicester victory parade. My heart said I didn’t want them anywhere near, but my head said it’s huge what’s happened, and my kids would never forgive me if I said they couldn’t go.
“My eldest daughter even said she wouldn’t forgive me if I didn’t allow her on that bus. In the end, we decided we couldn’t allow them not to be a part of such a big occasion. It really tests you, and it’s difficult because you do try and shield them.”
Dare to mention the word “WAG”, however, and Becky grimaces.
“It’s such a dated term,” she says very matter-of-factly. “It’s been around for so long and a lot of these wives and girlfriends have got so much more to give and have careers of their own.
“A lot of my friends are really intelligent and I don’t think they get the credit they deserve. Many are also working mums. They are not arm candy and not just a wife or girlfriend of a footballer.”
Likewise, Becky has turned down offers to promote herself as the footballer’s wife of the moment – including a “Real Lives of Leicester City WAGs” fly-on-the-wall show. Instead, she’s focusing on Jamie’s training academy, dealing with the demands of life under the microscope and, most importantly, being a mum.
“It is a lot to juggle, and sometimes I have to take five or six deep breaths and then come back out again and say: ‘Right, I’m ready!’"
