Coleen Rooney seemed to effortlessly make it to the I'm a Celebrity final. However, she has recently opened up about her struggles on the show, revealing that she considered leaving after just one week due to missing her family intensely.
In a chat with the Mirror following her close second-place finish to Danny Jones, Coleen shared how a glimpse of her pillow, designed with images of her husband Wayne and their sons, led to an emotional moment. "In that first week, I did wake up one morning and I looked at the pillow and I saw on it obviously Wayne and the kids, and I had a little cry and I thought I don't know whether I can go all this way," she confessed.
Despite the tears, Coleen managed to shake off the homesickness by diving into camp life, focusing on tasks like washing up and gathering wood. "I went off and did the washing up and collected the wood and did whatever I had to do," she explained.
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"I just got on with it."
She also admitted to feeling overshadowed by the more extroverted personalities in camp, questioning her own contribution. "In the first week I just thought I can't see me going all the way because I was just me," Coleen said, reports the Mirror.
"We had loads of personalities in there who were great and I got on with, but they were performers and I felt like I was, at times, just sat there thinking, 'what do I bring? '".
She reflected on her time in the jungle, admitting: "It wasn't uncomfortable. They made it comfortable. It was just me sitting back and looking at that camp and thinking I was more quieter than everyone else. But obviously people enjoyed it and wanted me to stay in there longer and see a bit more of me. I don't know why, but they did."
She soon realised though, she hadn't fully thought it through: "I think my head before I went in was just to get everything sorted for the kids and get everything done for Christmas. I wanted to get out of here so I could just enjoy it. But then I didn't actually think about going in. It wasn't until I was in there that I thought, 'what have I signed myself up for? What am I doing in here? '"
Coleen, who experienced intense headaches from detoxing off caffeine and sugar, found the initial days particularly challenging until it began to improve. "As it got better, the weather got worse. And then that was tough."
Describing the historic bad weather conditions, she recounted: "There was one night where we all got woken up in the early hours in the morning to go into the Bush Telegraph because of a storm.
"I was asleep in there, Alan was asleep. You think this isn't what we thought the jungle would be."
Viewers were moved to tears as they watched the emotional reunion between Coleen and her mum Colette, along with her two boys Kit, eight, and Cass, six, in camp. In a rare display of emotion, Coleen was seen breaking down in her mother's arms.
"I do snap myself out of things really quickly, and I'm not a crier, but when my mum came in that really surprised me," she admitted. "You know, when I think back to that moment, it was like someone had told me someone had died. And I don't think I've been shocked more than that in my whole life. That is the biggest shock I've ever had."
Saying goodbye to her mum again was tough - and it reminded her of the isolation when she was in America for Wayne's job.
"I was like 'you're here now, I'm not going to let you leave.' My mum said 'do you feel like you are in America now? ' When I was in America, I was homesick and whenever we got together, we didn't want to leave. And the only other time she said that to me was during COVID, when we couldn't see each other."
Seeing her boys gave her the "urge to then battle through the next few days" to the final. After coming out of the jungle, the first thing she did was phone home, where Wayne and the elder boys Kai, 15, Klay, 11, had thrown a family party to celebrate her in the final.
She chuckled as she revealed that her two eldest children had taken the day off school on Monday due to a late night. "I spoke to Wayne as soon as he got in the car," she shared.
"They all had a gathering at home and watched it together. Wayne and my two older ones were at home as it was harder for them to come out to school.
"The little ones, obviously it's easier. The (two eldest) did say they weren't going to school tomorrow because their mum was in the final. I am not sure what the school has to say about that but obviously they haven't gone all the way to Australia so maybe they do deserve a day off."
She expressed being touched by Wayne's reaction. "He just said how proud he was. In the letter I got in camp, he said he's never missed me as much and I can understand that, because we've been apart for weeks and weeks on end, but we speak a number of times a day. We FaceTime. So to not have that communication has been tough and not knowing or keeping up to date on the kids' school and football. I'm so involved in all that back home that was hard."
Coleen also found it amusing when she discovered that Wayne had been rallying his millions of followers to vote for her to do trials. After one plea on social media, she was voted the next day to do a trial.
She added: "So I heard but you know what? I'm so glad he did, because I was desperate to do a trial. And at that time, I thought, What's the point in coming here if I'm not doing any trials?".
After one trial, a cockroach found its way into her ear. "I could just feel it going round, and I could see people's faces, and they were like: 'that's not right' But I didn't panic, and they squirted the water up there and it was all ok," she recalls.
Not only viewers but also her campmates admired her readiness to roll up her sleeves and help with chores. However, Coleen says that's just part of her daily life and she's always been hands-on.
"I might not have camped that much but I used to clean chalets at Pontins when I was younger," she shares. " I don't mind getting my hands dirty, that doesn't bother me. I've got four boys."
English (US) ·