Up until a week ago, I felt a bit sorry for Coleen Rooney and I am not sure I really understood her.
But since then I have rewatched her Disney+ documentary, listened to a podcast interview she gave, read her book from cover to cover and then finally met her in Brisbane Airport before speaking to her again on Zoom hours before she started filming I'm A Celebrity.
I now see her as a strong and pragmatic woman, whereas before I might have believed she was a bit weak.
Given what she has managed to shrug off and put behind her over the years with husband Wayne, I think I can safely say she won't care one bit that my opinion has changed and she won't worry too much about what people think at home when they're watching ITV for the next three weeks. For Coleen, life is all about her family and having fun.
For most of the last decade it has almost solely been a case of putting her family first, and now, she is going to hopefully have some fun herself. And let's be honest, we all can't wait to watch. She is the biggest I'm A Celebrity signing for many years.
Everyone knows Coleen is a good mum for Kai, 15, Klay, 11, Kit, 8, and Cass, six but the extremes she goes to show how much her four sons mean to her. They are never far from the conversation I had with Coleen and they were the thing she spoke about when she had her final calls home from Australia to her mum and Wayne before her phone was taken off her.
That family is her world and I see that more clearly now and they would have been at the forefront of her mind when deciding to stay married to Wayne when times got touch. Wayne has made some mistakes down the years, but this was normally when drinks were involved, as Coleen has pointed out in her autobiography.
Also you have to factor in how the relationship is so unique, they have been together since they were so young, and they were such huge stars as teenagers when Wayne was a football superstar. If, as Coleen told Fearne Cotton on the Happy Place podcast "the love was always there" then I can see it was a family unit worth keeping together and fighting for.
Coleen stayed with Wayne through tough times, and now as she said herself, she is in charge in the Rooney household and also got to design it, when they moved into their new mansion which we got glimpses of in the Disney+ documentary.
She says they still go on dates, even if they sometimes only involve a takeaway and a film in the annex of their mansion. Dates and nights away without the kids I always think are important to keep romance and relationships alive and exciting. In that sense they are like any other couple in their 30s, and if you strip away the money and the fact Wayne's mistakes were played out in the media spotlight, they would be like a lot of working class families who have done well for themselves and now live in a nice house and like a drink now and again or a party.
In recent years Coleen's family life has settled down and she has even been the one making waves recently with the Wagatha Christie court case. During the case, at weekends she would prep the boys' school kits and schedules before heading to the London courts, just as she has now done whilst she is in Australia with the giant white board people saw on social media filled with plan.
She told me she is just a normal scouser and 'Coleen from Liverpool' and in some senses she is right. Coleen isn't too different from other mums who grew up in her street, she just has nicer cars and a bigger house. She seems to be a model mother, she has come out of the court case with Rebekah Vardy on top and now she is going into I'm A Celebrity for a new challenge.
Despite what Rebekah Vardy has said this weekend, I think people should be applauded for working at making relationships work if they are worth saving. Coleen and Wayne did that and now seem happy which is good news for them and their kids.
I just hope no one in camp calls her Wagatha, she wants to be known simply as Coleen, but by the end of the next three weeks, she might have to answer to 'queen' as well.
* Mark Jefferies flew from London to Brisbane with Cathay Pacific to cover I'm A Celebrity.
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