After spending a year and a half living on opposite sides of the Atlantic, Coleen Rooney breathed a sigh of relief when husband Wayne resigned from his role as Head Coach of US team DC United in October. But two months later, with Wayne in a new manager position with Birmingham City, an insider tells heat that mum-of-four Coleen is not happy about being condemned to life as a football widow once again.
We’re told, “Coleen is fed up with Wayne making her promises that ‘next year’ he’ll be around. She’s annoyed because their deal was that Wayne could take on the job in Washington and really put the work into his career, and when that stint was over, she wanted him to come home. She’d told him that it was her turn to put her career first. Now that’s come crashing down, and she feels she’s just back to being a football widow and is more alone than ever.”
The couple share a £20 million mansion in Cheshire with their sons – Kai, 13, Klay, ten, Kit, seven and Cass, five. For decades, Coleen has put their family first, protecting her kids as their life was thrust into the limelight, as well as being forced to defend herself on several occasions in light of Wayne’s rumoured infidelities.
Last year, Coleen hit the headlines once again when she went to the High Court to defend herself in the libel trial brought against her by fellow WAG Rebekah Vardy. But while the trial may have, in her own words, “terrified” her, it proved to be her biggest success yet.
Not only did she win, but what followed was a deal with Disney+ to release a three-part docuseries about the trial, as well as a contract with publishing giant Penguin to release an autobiography entitled My Account.
Her earning power rocketed to a rumoured £5 million this year, with insiders insisting that she was “very much the main bread winner”, and fashion and lifestyle brands clambering to work with her. Indeed, Coleen told Vogue in her iconic September shoot that she was “excited for the next chapter”.
But our insider says Coleen has once again found herself playing second fiddle to football, as she puts her own dreams on the back burner. With Wayne just weeks into a new three-and-a-half-year contract with Birmingham City – and a three-hour daily commute between their Cheshire home and the team’s training ground – that’s unlikely to change anytime soon.
They reveal, “Coleen had so many plans for the New Year and was really excited about some of the opportunities, but she can only take them if Wayne is around and at the moment, he’s absent. She can’t rely on her parents for extra childcare, as they already do so much. And while she hires a nanny one day a week, she doesn’t think it’s fair on the kids to increase that."
“The boys want to watch his matches at the weekends, too, so of course she’s the one who has to do that. She’s not going to say no to the boys as they are obsessed with football. Coleen just feels it’s unfair, and she’s hurt that, again, Wayne is putting football ahead of her and the family. He just doesn’t get it.”
However, after seeing her light up this year with new hopes for the future, the source says Coleen’s family are encouraging her not to back down.
The source says, “Coleen is being told to stick to her guns by her close friends and her parents. They want to see her reach her goals, and they are telling her to leave Wayne in charge for a change. They think he should be given a taste of what it’s like to be the one having to manage four boys!”