Coleen Mary Rooney ( McLoughlin; born 3 April 1986) is an English media personality. She is married to English

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

manager and former player

Wayne Rooney Wayne Mark Rooney (born 24 October 1985) is an English professional Manager (association football), football manager and former Association football, player who was most recently the head coach of EFL Championship club Plymouth Argyle F.C., Pl ...

Early life and education

Coleen Mary McLoughlin was born in

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

to Tony and Colette McLoughlin. Tony McLoughlin, who was a

bricklayer A bricklayer, which is related to but different from a mason, is a craftsperson and tradesperson who lays bricks to construct brickwork. The terms also refer to personnel who use blocks to construct blockwork walls and other forms of maso ...

, also ran a

boxing Boxing is a combat sport and martial art. Taking place in a boxing ring, it involves two people – usually wearing protective equipment, such as boxing glove, protective gloves, hand wraps, and mouthguards – throwing Punch (combat), punch ...

club. The McLoughlins are of Irish descent. Coleen is the eldest of four children; her sister Rosie, who had

Rett syndrome Rett syndrome (RTT) is a genetic disorder that typically becomes apparent after 6–18 months of age and almost exclusively in girls. Symptoms include impairments in language and coordination, and repetitive movements. Those affected often h ...

, died on 5 January 2013 at the age of 14. Coleen has four boys: Kai, Klay, Kit and Cass. Coleen Rooney attended

St John Bosco Arts College St John Bosco Arts College is a Roman Catholic comprehensive secondary school for girls in Croxteth, Liverpool. Admissions The school caters for girls between Year 7 to Year 11, which after this year, in Year 12 and 13, the school allows boys ...

and left school with 10

GCSEs The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is an academic qualification in a range of subjects taken in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, having been introduced in September 1986 and its first exams taken in 1988. State schools ...

, including an A* for

Performing Arts The performing arts are arts such as music, dance, and drama which are performed for an audience. They are different from the visual arts, which involve the use of paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art objects. P ...

Career

Rooney wrote a column for celebrity magazine '' Closer'' entitled "Welcome to My World". She left ''Closer'' in 2008 to write a weekly fashion and news column for ''

OK! ''OK!'' is a British weekly magazine that primarily specialises in royal and celebrity news. Originally launched as a monthly magazine, its first issue was published in April 1993. In September 2004, ''OK''! launched in Australia as a monthly ...

'' magazine. Rooney began presenting when in May 2006, she assisted

Sir Trevor McDonald Sir Trevor Lawson McDonald (born George McDonald; 16 August 1939) is a Trinidadian-British newsreader and journalist, best known for his career as a news presenter with Independent Television News (ITN). McDonald began his career working as a ...

on his show '' Tonight with Trevor McDonald'' in a programme about the

genetic disorder A genetic disorder is a health problem caused by one or more abnormalities in the genome. It can be caused by a mutation in a single gene (monogenic) or multiple genes (polygenic) or by a chromosome abnormality. Although polygenic disorders ...

, from which her younger sister suffered. She went on to make her own series for ITV called ''Coleen's Real Women'' in which she was labelled as "the nation's favourite

girl next door The girl next door is a young female stock character who is often used in Romance novel, romantic stories. She is named so because she often lives next door to the protagonist or is a childhood friend. They start out with a friendship that late ...

" and looked for "real women" to front

advertising campaign An advertising campaign or marketing campaign is a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme which make up an integrated marketing communication (IMC). An IMC is a platform in which a group of people can group their ide ...

s as an alternative to models. In December 2005, Rooney sold an exercise

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

entitled ''Coleen McLoughlin's Brand New Body Workout'', which became a bestseller in the United Kingdom. She was paid £3 million to front the George at Asda campaign. In June 2010, Rooney struck a deal with retail and gambling company

Littlewoods Littlewoods was a retail and football betting company founded in Liverpool, England, by John Moores in 1923. By the 1980s, it had grown to become the largest private company in Europe but subsequently declined in the face of increased compe ...

. Rooney's autobiography, ''Welcome to My World'', was released in March 2007. This was followed by ''Coleen's Real Style'' the following year, published by

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is a British–American publishing company that is considered to be one of the "Big Five (publishers), Big Five" English-language publishers, along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group USA, Hachette, Macmi ...

. She has also published a four-book series called ''Coleen Style Queen'' from 2008 to 2010. In October 2023, a drama documentary about the

Wagatha Christie Wagatha Christie is a popular name given to a dispute between the British media personalities Rebekah Vardy and Coleen Rooney, which culminated in a 2022 libel case in the English High Court, ''Vardy v Rooney''. In 2019, Rooney announced on Twi ...

court case ''Vardy v Rooney'' was released on

Disney+ The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...

, which documented and told Rooney’s side of the case and the details leading up to the social media posting. In November 2024, Rooney appeared as a contestant on the twenty-fourth series of '' I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!'', finishing in second place after 22 days in the jungle.

Personal life

Marriage and children

She met her future husband,

, at age 12 in the Liverpool suburb of

Croxteth Croxteth is a suburb of Liverpool, Merseyside, England, and a Liverpool City Council Ward. Although housing in the area is predominantly modern, the suburb has some notable history. At the 2011 census it had a population of 14,561. Etymology ...

. They began a relationship when they were 16, after they left secondary school. Wayne's mother Jeanette worked as a part-time cleaner at

, which Coleen attended. The couple married in

Portofino Portofino (; ) is a ''comune'' located in the Metropolitan City of Genoa on the Italian Riviera. The town is clustered around its small harbour, and is known for the colourfully painted buildings that line the shore. Since the late 19th centur ...

, Italy, on 12 June 2008; Britain's ''

'' magazine paid them a reported £2.5 million for exclusive wedding information and pictures. The newlyweds, dubbed Wayleen, moved into a new £1.3m mansion in

Formby Formby is a town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton, Merseyside, England. Historic counties of England, Historically in Lancashire, three manors are recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 under ...

. They lived in

Prestbury, Cheshire Prestbury is a village and civil parish in Cheshire, England, about 2 miles (3 km) north of Macclesfield. At the 2001 United Kingdom census, 2001 census, it had a population of 3,324;Alder Hey Children's Charity.

Rebekah Vardy dispute

On 9 October 2019, Rooney made a

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

post explaining that posts from her private

Instagram Instagram is an American photo sharing, photo and Short-form content, short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with Social media camera filter, filters, be ...

account were being leaked to ''

The Sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot Plasma (physics), plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as ...

'' newspaper. She stated that to discover who was selling the stories, she had restricted access to the posts. She revealed that the only viewer of these posts was an account belonging to Rebekah Vardy, implying that she was the culprit. The ensuing scandal was dubbed "Wagatha Christie", a

portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.

of the football term WAG and mystery writer

Agatha Christie Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, (; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English people, English author known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving ...

, by the British media. Vardy responded on her own Twitter account, denying the claims and claiming that her Instagram account had been hacked. In June 2020, news broke that Vardy was taking Rooney to court for defamation, with legal costs reportedly set to hit £500,000 on each side. In November 2020, Mr Justice Warby ruled in favour of Vardy after the libel preliminary hearing at the High Court in London which took place on 19 November 2020. Neither Rooney nor Vardy were at the court in person. Rooney was ordered to pay Vardy almost £23,000 in court costs. The pair were given until 8 February 2021 to make an attempt to mediate their case. In May 2022, Vardy sued Rooney for libel, arguing that the accusation over her Instagram account was false. Following the earlier ruling, it became Rooney’s responsibility to prove Vardy was personally responsible for leaking stories to ''The Sun'', or convince the judge that publication of the allegation was in the public interest. In July 2022, the judge in the case, Mrs Justice Steyn, dismissed Mrs Vardy's claim, ruling that Mrs Rooney's accusation was "substantially true".

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Rooney, Coleen 1986 births 21st-century English memoirists 21st-century English women writers English columnists English people of Irish descent English Roman Catholics Television presenters from Liverpool Living people Writers from Liverpool Coleen