Meet Coleen Rooney, the WAG more famous than her husband: the 38-year-old I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here contestant began dating Wayne Rooney at 16 and has remained in the spotlight ever since

Coleen Rooney’s husband may be one of England’s most talented and talked about footballers, but in recent years the spotlight has been firmly turned on her. From 2022’s so-called Wagatha Christie trial to her current stint in the Australian jungle for reality show I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here, she’s rarely out of the headlines. A more recent headline from her stint on the show involves none other than US president-elect Donald Trump. Rooney didn’t mince words when referring to Trump as a “dirty b******,” recalling her visit to the White House with Wayne back in 2018. “When we lived in America, we were invited to the White House for Christmas, and we went in to meet Donald Trump,” said Rooney. “And we walked in and we got to get the official photograph taken in front of the Christmas tree. So Trump said to his son, ‘See? Told ya, all the soccer players get the good looking girls’ … I was like, ‘dirty b******.’” She further claimed the president-elect wanted Wayne to teach his son, Barron, how to play football. But despite the attention, she has said that she’d much sooner just be known as “Coleen from Liverpool”. Here’s what you need to know about Coleen Rooney’s story so far. She met Wayne Rooney when they were teenagers Coleen Mary McLoughlin may have remained a relative unknown if she hadn’t met a young Wayne Rooney while still in her teens – Wayne’s mother worked as a cleaner at Coleen’s school. The pair began dating at 16, just as Wayne’s football career was beginning to take off. At the time he was the youngest player ever to score in the Premier League, and was soon being hailed as the country’s best footballer. The pair married in a lavish Italian wedding in 2008. She comes from a big family – and lost her sister Rosie As noted by The Times, Coleen comes from a large Irish Catholic family that lived on a housing estate in Liverpool. Not only is she one of four herself, but her mum, a nurse, and her father, a bricklayer, both come from large families. Coleen grew up alongside two younger brothers and an adopted younger sister named Rosie. Since birth, Rosie had suffered with a rare genetic disorder called Rett syndrome, and in 2013 at the age of just 14, she died. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Coleen Rooney (@coleen_rooney) “I used to do her hair and used to love picking clothes with my mum for her,” Coleen said earlier this month on I’m a Celebrity. “She struggled,” she added. “She couldn’t walk and talk and would be in pain and sick but she still put a smile on her face.” She’s had a successful career Being thrust into the spotlight at such a young age meant that everything from Coleen’s clothes to her “fake tan fails” were tabloid fodder – she was even photographed on her way to school as a teenager. But she managed to turn the attention into a lucrative career, and has since penned columns for Closer and OK! magazine, appeared in advertising campaigns for British brands Asda, Littlewoods and Argos, and even had her own TV show, Coleen’s Real Women, in 2008. She’s reported to be earning US$1.9 million for her appearance on I’m a Celebrity. Her relationship with Wayne has been rocky Wayne Rooney’s infidelities have been well documented, and began when the pair were still teenagers. In 2004 it was revealed that Wayne had visited brothels at 16. “Foolish as it now seems, I did on occasion visit massage parlours and prostitutes,” he admitted in a statement. Coleen was reportedly so angry that she threw her engagement ring into the bushes at a squirrel sanctuary, prompting a public hunt for it, as reported by the BBC. He was accused of similar behaviour in 2010, and was convicted of drink driving, but Coleen has taken him back each time. “I know I would be fine on my own, with just me and my children,” she later wrote in a public Facebook post, “but I don’t want to live like that – I want to try and continue our marriage and live as a family.” Her beef with a fellow WAG has been turned into theatre When information she was sharing on her private Instagram account kept showing up in The Sun, Coleen Rooney suspected fellow WAG Rebekah Vardy of being the leaker. Planting several stories that only Vardy could see, Rooney was able to prove her case. This has been a burden in my life for a few years now and finally I have got to the bottom of it...... pic.twitter.com/0YqJAoXuK1 — Coleen Rooney (@ColeenRoo) October 9, 2019 After Rooney exposed Vardy publicly, Vardy sued Rooney for defamation. The ensuing court case became a national obsession, even being turned into a documentary and a stage show. Rooney won the case but admitted on I’m a Celebrity that far from being entertaining, the legal battle was a “nightmare”.