We’ve been here before with Coleen Rooney. Wayne has let her down, and the wedding ring has come off. Once, she reportedly went as far as to move out of the marital home, before giving him another chance.
This week, the long-suffering Mrs Rooney has been doing her best to play down her latest marital crisis, putting her ring back on for a few hours on Thursday to attend the launch of her new fashion collection for Primark in London, and painting on her most confident smile.
However, it can be revealed that the former football star remains unforgiven.
Coleen, 39, is ‘exasperated’ and ‘angry’ over her wayward husband’s behaviour. This time he was out partying in Manchester until 3am after last weekend’s Brit Awards in a group including two apparently single women.
According to reports, he was looking ‘worse for wear’ in the bar and left the establishment in a taxi at around 3.25am.
‘Wazz on the Razz’, screamed the headlines. He looked unfocused, grinning stupidly with his shirt half untucked.
Meanwhile, Coleen was at home in their magnificent, scrupulously tidy £20million home a few miles away, with their four sons, Kai, 16, Klay, 12, Kit, ten, and Cass, eight. She was none the wiser until pictures of her husband were published on Sunday night.
Friends of hers tell me she is still absolutely furious over the indiscretion and its timing. Once again, Wayne has managed to ruin a big moment for her through this idiotic behaviour, they say.
But it’s more serious than Coleen’s anger, though. People who know the 40-year-old former England star, now a successful TV football pundit, say he is actually in the grip of a ‘number of addictions’.
‘He has an addictive personality,’ I’m told.
He and Coleen have already spoken about his issues with alcohol, and he’s also spoken about problems with gambling early in his career. At a point where he suddenly had more money than he knew what do to with, he found himself compelled to throw it away at the bookies and then chase his losses.
Coleen and Wayne at the Liverpool screening of Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story. They have been sweethearts since they were 16
In these circumstances, some wives might forgive or send their spouse in the direction of therapy or rehab. And there are those on Wayne’s team who think this could benefit him. But the Rooneys are ‘not there yet’ – and in any case Coleen takes a black and white moral stand on Wayne’s frailties.
‘Her view is that he’s done wrong, and he knows he’s done wrong,’ says a friend, and therefore it will take time for him to be forgiven.
I am told: ‘He’s let her down and she sees it very simply that way. He’s not been asked to move out, but she is very angry. Someone else might see that Wayne has issues which need to be addressed, but Coleen is very moral and she’s actually as hard as nails. For her, right is right and wrong is wrong – and Wayne is wrong. Again. At the moment she can’t get past that.’
She looked rather strained at the Lily Allen gig at Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall on Tuesday night which she went to with friends – and without her wedding ring. You can expect to see some more of her attending events solo in the coming weeks.
Everyone expects that eventually she will forgive Wayne because ultimately there is a lot of love there. And Coleen, raised in a good Catholic household, and after 18 years of marriage, absolutely does not want a divorce.
In an interview with Vogue magazine in 2023 she explained: ‘It’s been a battle at times, I look at [any] situation we’re in and think, “Could we move forward from that? Is it worth moving forward from that?” I don’t just give up.’
She continued: ‘We’ve never backed away from it. We own it. I remember having a conversation about this with someone and I said, “Well, do you know what your wife gets up to every day and night? At least I know what my husband’s doing!” It mightn’t be good, but I know.’
That seems a pitifully small satisfaction. However, at the moment, hapless Wayne finds himself in the place Rebekah Vardy was when Coleen accused her of breaching her trust on social media – in Coleen’s crosshairs. And that is not a comfortable place to be.
Even before the events of Saturday night, Coleen was indicating that Wayne can be exasperating.
In an interview, published last weekend, she reflected on the couple inviting the cameras into their homes for a reality TV series, which is scheduled to go out on Disney+ from May.
Since retiring as a footballer in 2021 and then managing Derby County, Birmingham City, DC United and Plymouth Argyle, Wayne has rebranded himself as a football pundit. He’s a regular on Match Of The Day and contributes to a number of high profile podcasts. This means he is at home a lot more – and clearly he is getting under Coleen’s feet.
‘In some ways it’s good, in some ways it’s annoying, because we’ve never had that much time together,’ Coleen said.
They’ve known each other since they were 12 years old and have been sweethearts since they were 16. Wayne’s mum was a dinner lady at Coleen’s school, and he would play football in front of the garages near Coleen’s house.
She’s always been the girl for him. After their first kiss, he had her name tattooed on his body – getting his cousin to phone her to ask for the correct spelling.
Those who enjoyed the Disney+ documentary about the Wagatha Christie affair (where Coleen’s assertion that fellow WAG Rebekah Vardy had been leaking stories about her, leading to a libel suit which Mrs Vardy lost) will recall Wayne’s devotion to her.
Coleen seen out without her wedding ring the Monday afternoon. ‘We’ve been here before. Wayne has let her down, and the wedding ring has come off’
He was with her in court every day, gave his evidence clearly and calmly. He also carried her bags.
The couple’s first crisis came in 2004, when they were both still teenagers, and it emerged that Wayne had visited three prostitutes two years earlier, when he was 16.
Devastated, Coleen stood by her man but didn’t comment publicly on the claims – though she later admitted that when the scandal came out she hadn’t yet slept with Wayne herself.
Speaking about the incident in 2023, Coleen described her shame and their ‘screaming matches’ when he first told her the story was about to break.
She said: ‘I sat with it all swirling around me like some horrible dream, unable to decide what was best or what I wanted.
‘A voice inside me told me not to do anything rash and not to make a decision in the midst of my anger.
‘Dealing with that kind of thing was heartbreaking enough, but I was 18 years old. I was upset and confused, not knowing what to think or how others might react. I wasn’t sure what I felt about Wayne any more.’
In the end, though, Coleen decided to forgive him. ‘I accepted that this had happened a long time ago and that we were stronger now, more committed.’
They were married four years later in 2008 in a lavish ceremony in Portofino, Italy, to which both extended families were flown out.
Wayne has always looked after Coleen’s family and treated them with respect, and a number of them work for him.
She appreciates his loyalty and his family focus – they are qualities which bind them as a couple.
However in 2010, there was another scandal.
It emerged that Wayne had again had sex with prostitutes, this time while Coleen was pregnant with their first son. Again the ring came off, but again he was forgiven.
Then, in 2017, Wayne was arrested for drink-driving.
Coleen was abroad, on holiday, and pregnant with their fourth child. He had picked up lettings agent Laura Simpson, 29, in a bar and then was driving her VW Beetle after a ten-hour drinking session. Simpson claimed she and Wayne had enjoyed a kiss and a cuddle.
Coleen addressed the scandal in a candid Facebook post: ‘Before all the stories begin, yes, I have put my wedding ring on . . . A lot of people will be saying, “You don’t have to explain yourself, don’t feel like you have to do this” etc. I know I don’t, but I am and I want to.’
She continued: ‘A few people are probably thinking I am stupid for staying in my marriage. I am not stupid, I know my own mind and it’s something I want to try and work on
She added: ‘It’s my decision… Do I love Wayne… Yes I do. If I didn’t then I wouldn’t be trying to make it work. I know I would be fine on my own, with just me and my children, but I don’t want to live like that. I want to try and continue our marriage and live as a family, because that’s what I want to do.’
Later in 2021, Coleen’s patience was tested once again when pictures emerged of Wayne partying and falling asleep in a hotel room with a group of young women.
He later admitted he ‘made a mistake’ and apologised to his family and Derby County, the team he was managing at the time. Cheshire Police later confirmed that they had dropped a complaint of blackmail made concerning the images, and the women apologised.
Coleen has admitted there is some element of truth to the idea they have stayed together for their four boys, saying, ‘that was part of it but also we still love each other’.
She believes that alcohol abuse has been at the heart of every one of his tumbles off the pedestal, saying: ‘Alcohol has a lot to answer for. As far as Wayne is concerned, it’s often been his downfall. Often, when something is bothering Wayne, he bottles it up.
‘Instead of coming out with the thing that is bothering him, relieving himself of the burden, he pushes it down. Then, sometimes, he’ll go off on one, behaving in a way that makes everything worse.
‘I say the same thing now as I did back then: If you’re dealing with something stupid done in the heat of the moment involving alcohol, it might be fixable.
‘If love, emotions and ongoing deception are involved then it’s a different story.’
Wayne is under no illusions – he believes his wife keeps him from going under.
Last year he said: ‘I honestly believe if she weren’t there, I’d be dead. She’s managed me because I needed managing.’
Her work’s not over yet.