I’m A Celebrity’s Coleen Rooney reveals uncommon perception into marriage with husband Wayne as she admits ‘it wasn’t love at first sight’

Coleen Rooney has revealed husband Wayne ‘fought to get her’ as she opened up about their marriage in the first episode of I’m A Celebrity on Sunday.

As Coleen, 38, settled in with her campmates, she didn’t shy away from speaking about their love life.

Her 16-year marriage to Wayne – whom she met when they were both 12 while growing up in Liverpool – has not been without its public scandals. 

The WAG, who married the football legend in 2008, revealed ‘it wasn’t love at first sight’ when she first met Wayne.

Sitting around the campfire, Coleen chatted to her fellow campmates GK Barry, Oti Mabuse and Jane Moore.

Oti asked: ‘And it was love at first sight?’ 

Coleen replied: ‘No it was for him, not for me. He fought to get me, yeah. 

‘I waited until I’d done my GCSEs and then I went on a date. I was pretty good at school.’

Opening up further about their first date at the cinema, she admitted: ‘We had a kiss around the church first.’

Before they tied the knot in a stunning ceremony in the village of Portofino on the Italian Riviera in 2008, Wayne admitted sleeping with prostitutes after being caught on CCTV at a backstreet Liverpool brothel. 

One was a 48-year-old grandmother known as ‘Auld Slapper’ who wore a rubber catsuit. 

Then came his threesome with two more, Helen Wood and Jenny Thompson, at The Lowry Hotel in Manchester in 2010.

Most recently, in 2017, he was caught driving Cheshire-based estate agent Laura Simpson’s car while over the drink-drive limit. But Coleen has stood by him through all of it.

Due to his football commitments, Wayne will not be jetting out to Australia to greet Coleen when she leaves the camp over its iconic bridge.

Instead, that duty will fall to the couple’s youngest sons, Kit, 8, and young Cass.

And the reason her elder sons Kai, 15, and 11-year-old Klay won’t make it?

They don’t want to miss football, she says.

‘They all had the option, but the two older ones decided that they would stay at home to continue with school and football,’ Coleen explains.

‘I think I said, ‘When you come you’ll have to bring your work with you,’ and they would be missing some football tournaments, so they quickly changed their minds.

‘Obviously I would have liked them all to come out but it makes sense in a way, and they both chose a wise decision not to miss out on anything back home.

‘As soon as the show’s over, I’m back straight away.

‘So, it’s one of those things. I think it was missing the football that really did it for them, they didn’t want to miss any tournaments.’

Before going into the jungle, Coleen admitted the couple are already distanced – and ‘barely see each other’ – as he juggles his new job with family life.

Since Wayne started managing Championship football side Plymouth Argyle in May, Coleen said their ‘time together is limited’ and they largely only see each other on Sundays.

Speaking to The Mail on Sunday after flying to Australia last week, Coleen described the toll the 260-mile distance between them is taking, with Wayne living most of the week in Salcombe, Devon – a five-hour drive from the family’s mansion in Cheshire.

But she said that just before leaving for her stint in the jungle, they managed to enjoy a ‘nice family day’ last weekend, having dinner together and attending their 11-year-old son Klay’s football tournament.

‘Wayne comes back once a week, sometimes twice, depending on the fixtures,’ Coleen explained.

‘Usually, he has Sunday off so he might come home. What’s good about the championship is that a lot of games are closer to me, closer to home, up in the North. 

‘So he’ll come home on a Saturday evening and spend Sunday with us, depending on what the boys have got on.

‘Time together is limited, more so than ever now because of the travelling and stuff.’

To find out more tune into I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! Monday at 9pm on ITV1, STV and ITVX