Rebekah Vardy reduced to tears by vile Twitter trolls threatening to rape her two-year-old and wishing her baby son dead

REBEKAH VARDY has tearfully recalled how an online troll threatened to RAPE her two-year-old daughter – and another wished her baby son DEAD.

In an exclusive interview with the Sun on Sunday, Rebekah, who is married to England striker Jamie, said: “I posted a picture of Sofia to thank a company for sending her some hair clips. She was smiling in her dad’s football shirt.

"Then I got such a vile message from someone wanting to rape her. It was shocking and out of the blue.”

Months later Rebekah — Becky to friends — received more vitriol online for an innocent tweet she posted about her son Finley, who is now seven months old.

She said: “Someone tweeted that he should have been stillborn. It was beyond upsetting.

"I thought, ‘This just isn’t right. That’s it.’ ”

It was the final straw for the fiercely protective mum-of-four, who has been hounded by online bullies since she began dating Jamie four years ago.

Rebekah, 35, decided to speak out about the haters, and launch a bid for justice against the person who threatened her daughter, with the aid of Channel 5 series Celeb Trolls: We’re Coming To Get You.

And in a further show of defiance against the abusers, she posed for a dramatic picture, exclusively for The Sun on Sunday, with all the names she’s been called scrawled across her back and arms.

Rebekah explained: “I was first approached a year ago to do something on trolling and I didn’t feel comfortable enough to talk about it.

“I was worried it would just encourage people.”

But then the abuse was directed at her and Jamie’s young family.

She said: “Jamie was furious. Both of us just wanted five minutes in a room with that person.

“It really p***** me off. People can say whatever they want to me. I’m thick skinned.

“I have been through so much and the only way I know how to be is strong. But once people bring my ­children into it, it’s a whole ­different ball game.”

“I did get really upset and cried about the nasty things people wrote about them.”
And yet it also made Rebekah determined NOT to give in to them by signing off from her combined 100,000 Twitter and Instagram fans.

“The shocking things that people write don’t make me want to leave social media at all.

“In fact they have the opposite effect and make me more ­determined to stay on.

“I think people who do it are getting kicks out of getting attention.

“They are often bullies because they’re insecure in themselves, with whatever has happened in their lives.”

As well as Finley and Sofia — her children with hubby Jamie — Rebekah also has another daughter Megan, 12, and son Taylor, seven, from ­previous relationships.

In the Channel 5 show, hosted by the former Saturdays singer Frankie Bridge, its tech team use the IP addresses — the numerical label assigned to each device — to trace ­perpetrators.

Rebekah had immediately told police of the vile tweet about her two-year-old daughter and says they had traced it abroad.

She said: “In the show we tried to track that person down, but it wasn’t to be because they were in India.”

She hopes the series will be a warning to people who have written mean things online — or are tempted to — believing they are doing so anonymously.

She said: “People think that because they can hide behind a computer screen no one will be able to find them or know they are saying these horrible things.

“But, in reality, they’re pretty stupid as everyone has an IP address.

Doing the controversial photoshoot was therapeutic for Rebekah.

She explains: “To hit back, I posed in bare skin, with all the nasty things people have called me written in lipstick.

“It was a mixture of the things I’ve been called in the past and what people perceive me to be.

“It’s a raw, moving image, but ultimately the names people call me don’t bother me. That’s because I’m a strong person.”

The nasty tweets also brought back bad memories of the sexual abuse Rebekah suffered as a teen.

Born Rebekah Miranda, she was the eldest daughter of her BBC local radio DJ mum Alison, 58 — from whom she is estranged — and Portuguese window cleaner father John, 64.

The family moved to a council estate in Witney, Oxfordshire, when Becky was nine.

Her parents later split, and from the age of 13 while living with her mum, Becky was preyed on by a family friend for three years.

It led to her attempting suicide with an overdose when she was 15, and as a result of the allegations, she cut ties with her mum.

A few years later, she tried to take her life again. But she has credited Jamie with helping her to deal with that.

Of the vile troll messages, she said: “It brought up bad memories and raw emotion from the abuse I suffered in my childhood.

“I just don’t understand how anyone could say such vile things about an innocent child. I’m so strong because of everything I’ve been through with my family and all the sexual abuse.

“There was a point in my life where being strong was the only thing I could be — the only thing that I had going for me was my strength.

“When you’ve had so much negativity, strength becomes embedded.

“I cope by raising awareness and helping other people, so they know they’re not the only ones who suffer.

“Victims of online abuse don’t have to suffer in silence. If I feel like I can do something that will make a ­difference I’ll do it.

“I know of people who have taken their own lives because they’ve been bullied. They feel it’s so bad their lives aren’t worth living any more.

“I want to inspire people who are being picked on to know they’re not alone. They always have someone to talk to who will offer you guidance.

“Even if you’re not the one being picked on, be a sounding board and someone who can listen.

“Kids don’t feel like they’ve got anyone who can listen.

“They don’t always feel like they are strong enough to say anything.”

She added: “Don’t ever be afraid of what someone thinks of you because chances are they probably think that of themselves anyway.”

• Rebekah’s ordeal is on Channel 5 series Celeb Trolls: We’re Coming To Get You, on Thursday at 10pm.

Read Karren Brady's column on online trolls