Coleen Rooney

Once ribbed by the press for her fashion sense and spending sprees, Coleen Rooney, neé McLoughlin, took four years to make the leap from schoolgirl to covergirl.

Having emerged into the public eye as the teenage fiancée of England footie ace Wayne Rooney, she has gone on to become a fully fledged celebrity in her own right, applauded for her style and wooed to front big-name ad campaigns.

The rise from footballer's fiancée to style icon and wealthy celeb wife was not without its hurdles, however.

She was born in 1986 in Liverpool to a hardworking Catholic family. The daughter of Tony McLoughlin, a bricklayer who ran a boxing club and his wife Colette, Coleen grew up in the city's tough Croxteth district.

She had two brothers Joe and Anthony, and an adopted sister Rosie, who was born with a genetic disorder known as Rett Syndrome, which meant she needed round the clock care.

The pretty blonde was just 12 when she first met the boy who would change the course of her life. Young love blossomed after Wayne plucked up the courage to ask her for a date, seizing the moment when he lent a hand after the chain had come off her bike.

While Wayne - who at the age of nine had signed as an apprentice with Liverpool football team Everton - concentrated on sport, Coleen was busy with her homework.

A hardworking student and deputy head of her Catholic girl's school, she gained an impressive ten GCSEs, at the same time as working Saturdays in a clothes shop where she earned £3.65 an hour. But as she embarked upon her A-levels, life began to take a very different course.

In October 2003, fresh from his England debut, her 17-year-old beau proposed to her on a garage forecourt. She accepted, leaving school later that year and going on to land a small role in the Merseyside soap Hollyoaks. Soon the pair were established in a millionaire-style mansion in nearby Formby.

Since then the Croxteth lass has forged a confident sense of style, often mixing designer creations with canny high-street purchases. She has appeared on the covers of Vogue and Marie Claire and written her magazine columns.

With lucrative modelling contracts with Asda and a mobile phone company under her belt, as well as royalties from her fitness DVD, Coleen could also afford to lavish gifts on her boyfriend. These included a Rolex watch and an Aston Martin, intended to cheer up the injured soccer star after he broke a bone in his foot before the 2006 World Cup.

Despite her new-found wealth and celebrity status, Coleen has never forgotten her roots and her humble background. "Sometimes Wayne will sit there and say: 'I can't believe it'. But you don't take it for granted. If either of us did, we'd say something."


In June 2008, she married Wayne in a lavish wedding held in the picturesque Italian Riviera’s Villa Durazzo, a 17th-century palace in the resort of Santa Margherita Ligure. Despite the torrential downpour the £5 million ceremony was the stuff of dreams, with the bride looking the picture of happiness in her Marchesa gown – rumoured to have cost £200,000 – and a huge fireworks display rounding off the reception.

She soon announced that the couple were expecting their first child. They welcomed baby son Kai Wayne in November 2009.

Sadly, in 2013, her little sister Rosie passed away, aged 14. Coleen and her family said they were "heartbroken".

Their statement added: "She was such a strong little girl and an inspiration to us all. We shall cherish forever the memories we have shared and the love she showed us each and every day of her life."

A few months after her death the footballer's wife was given a reason to smile again when her and Wayne's second son Klay Anthony was born.

Coleen is more than happy with her role as mum – and has admitted she’d love more children in the future.

“I would like to have a family - maybe three or four children - and I would be happy to be a full-time mum. I do enjoy my work, but I'd be happy when we do have children to just get on with that.”