What happened to you also happened to me - only in my case it was someone I had known for 50 years. The whole of her neighbourhood heard about it as well and I got a lot of rude and uncalled for remarks made to me. Consequently we are no longer on speaking terms and noone else gets the chance to do any back stabbing.
I think it is rather sad when people have such an anal complex that they can't tell the difference between work mess, batting fluff and dirt.