COLEEN ROONEY revealed she was a super-sleuth long before her Wagatha Christie escapades – even cracking what she was getting for Christmas as a kid.
The mum-of-four, 38, who exposed some camp secrets on I’m A Celebrity, confessed she has always had a nose for a mystery.
Fans have loved seeing how Coleen was willing to get her hands dirty during Bushtucker trials[/caption]
And she put it to good use in the lead up to the festive season working out what her prezzies would be.
Coleen’s detective skills came to light in 2019 after a social media post accusing her rival and Sun jungle columnist Rebekah Vardy of leaking stories to the Press.
This year’s I’m a Celeb runner-up said with a laugh: “I usually get on to things.
“I usually sniff things out before it actually happens.
“Even down to Christmas presents when I was younger — I knew what I was getting before it was Christmas.”
Wag Coleen — married to footie manager Wayne Rooney — displayed her investigative talents on the ITV reality show when she sussed out Maura Higgins’ and Rev Richard Coles’ Jungle Junkyard fibs.
She realised the pair, who were secretly living in luxury, were too content to have been telling the truth about slumming it.
Down-to-earth Coleen won fans over during her I’m a Celeb stint with tales of her footie star hubby and how he would write her romantic poetry.
The first week was tough. The headache set in day three – obviously, withdrawal from caffeine, sugar
and alcohol
Coleen
But in the first few days of her adventure Down Under, she could have done with a pick-me-up herself — after suffering withdrawal from booze and coffee.
Coleen — who planted fake stories on her private Instagram and accused fellow Wag Rebekah Vardy of leaking them, leading to their High Court libel trial — went cold turkey on caffeine in the camp.
‘Dunny doesn’t bother me’
And she revealed she paid the price for not weaning herself off it beforehand.
Coleen said yesterday: “The first week was tough.
“Obviously you’re weaning yourself off caffeine.
“After a few days, I was thinking, ‘What have I signed up for? What am I doing here?’.
“The headache set in, day three.
“Obviously, withdrawal from caffeine, sugar and alcohol. And then the hunger — we didn’t get stars in the first week.
“I didn’t do any prep before I went in there. I didn’t stop.
“Loads of people said that they cut out this and cut out that.
“I never. I just continued as normal.”
That was not all she struggled with in the early stages of the competition.
In fact, Coleen says she considered quitting in the first week as she sobbed over her kids in camp one morning.
In scenes not shown by ITV, she cried when looking at her luxury item — a pillow with a picture of her boys and Wayne on it.
But her iron will set in and helped her battle through to Sunday’s final, when she lost out to McFly’s Danny Jones by just over ten per cent of the 10million votes cast.
Coleen explained: “In that first week, I did wake up one morning and obviously I’d been given the pillow that I was sleeping on.
“I looked and I’d seen Wayne and the kids, and I had a little cry and thought, ‘I don’t know whether I can go all this way’.
“And that was only week one.
“But then I soon snapped out of it, done the washing up and collected the wood and did whatever I had to do and it was fine.
“I got on with it.”
She added: “I’m quite strong-minded.
“Even though I’m quiet, I battle through things.
“I just think, ‘Come on Coleen, you’ve said you’ll do it, so just do it’.
“I do snap myself out of things really quickly.”
Coleen was in floods of tears again when her two youngest lads — eight-year-old Kit and Cass, six — surprised her in the Aussie camp last week with her mum, Colette McLoughlin, 62.
But Plymouth Argyle boss Wayne was cheering her on from home amid his hectic fixture list, while her eldest lads — Kai, 15, and Klay, 11 — also stayed in Cheshire.
She rang Manchester United and England great Wazza, 39, in the car immediately after leaving the jungle.
Coleen said: “As soon as I came out, I phoned home.
“They all had a gathering in the house and watched it together.
“Wayne just said how proud he was.
“In the letter (from home) I got, he said he’s never missed me as much — and I can understand that because we’ve not spoken.
“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, it’s been tough.
“Not keeping up to date on the kids’ school and football . . . I’m so involved in all that back home. That was hard.”
Doting mum Coleen burst into tears when she hugged Kit and Cass in camp last Friday, having been apart from them for almost four weeks.
In Sunday’s final, she was again reunited with the boys, plus Colette and her dad Tony.
She said: “Obviously, my mum, dad and the two younger kids were there, then Wayne and my two older ones at home.
“It was harder for them to come out of school.
“They did say they weren’t going to school tomorrow because their mum was in the final.
“I don’t know what school’s going to say about that but, you know, they haven’t come all the way to Australia so maybe they do deserve a day off.”
ITV bosses broke the bank to make Coleen the most expensive signing in the show’s history, with a deal reportedly worth over £1.5million.
Wag Coleen displayed her investigative talents on the ITV reality show when she sussed out Maura Higgins’ and Rev Richard Coles’ Jungle Junkyard fibs, pictured during a trial[/caption]
Coleen was oblivious to the fact her childhood sweetheart Wayne was behind a surge in votes which forced her into her first jungle trial[/caption]
And they got their money’s worth.
Viewers loved hearing her tales of encounters with the rich and famous, such as previously meeting “dirty b*****d” President elect Donald Trump in the White House.
Fans also loved seeing how Coleen, who lives in a £20million mansion, was willing to get her hands dirty during Bushtucker trials.
And between necking cocktails of blended pig’s testicles and sinking shots of liquid cockroaches, she did chores such as cleaning the dunny with ex-Love Islander Maura Higgins, 34.
I’m not a princess. I don’t mind getting my hands dirty. I might not have camped that much . . . but I used to clean chalets at Pontins when I was younger
Coleen
But none of that bothered Coleen (apart from, maybe, a fishbowl containing blended giant mealworms, blended fermented herring, crocodile anus and vomit fruit, which made her retch).
She said: “I’m not a princess. I don’t mind getting my hands dirty.
“I might not have camped that much . . . but I used to clean chalets at Pontins when I was younger.
“I’ve got four boys and we’ve been in situations where we’ve got dirty before.
“We go to places like mud trails and we go in ponds — none of that fazes me.
“If I had my lot there, I could’ve stayed there for weeks and weeks.
“Going to the dunny doesn’t bother me.
“I’ve gone behind a tree before. I have got luxuries in life and I feel that that’s what my campmates were surprised with — that I wasn’t fazed with living outside.
“But it’s nice to come back to luxury.
“It’s nice to have the nicer things in life, but I don’t depend on it.”
Before jetting to Oz, Coleen wrote instructions for friends and family looking after her sons on a whiteboard as if they were footie tactics.
Her regimented home schedule stood her in good stead for knuckling down with camp chores.
‘It’s so boring in camp’
She said: “It’s my daily life to pick up after people and get on with it.
“If I don’t do it myself, it might not get done. And it was hard to step back.
“There were times where people took longer to do their chores, where I was thinking, ‘I’m desperate to go and do that’. But we got punished for it and couldn’t do it.
“Also, I like doing it to keep busy because it’s so boring in camp.
“There’s not much in between when people go out for trials, and you’re just there and, once your job’s done, it’s done.
“I’m not a napper, but now I am.”
Coleen said she is also “not a crier”, but that seeing mum Colette in camp “really surprised me”.
It was one of the only times producers managed to pull a fast one on the Wag, who was also oblivious to the fact her childhood sweetheart Wayne was behind a surge in votes which forced her into her first jungle trial.
She thought her tale about a rat gnawing its way into her car was to blame, but that never even aired on I’m A Celeb.
Instead, it was her hubby pleading with his 62million social media followers to vote for her which left her covered in rats, cockroaches and worms.
Coleen said: “Back home, I had a rat in my car, and it caused damage.
“It was chewing the wires.
“That was why I thought I got voted for that trial, because it was rats in a van. But obviously it wasn’t.”
She added of Wayne’s push: “I’m glad he did because I was desperate to do a trial.
“I thought, ‘What’s the point in coming in here if I’m not doing any trials?’.”
Coleen also revealed the strict workout routine she stuck to in the jungle.
In one episode, she was seen squatting in the shower area.
She says she does a total of 126 squats and pulses every day, adding: “Every morning, when I’m in the shower, I do squats.
“I do a few gym sessions and reformer Pilates.
“But in the jungle, it was my squats.
“Those stairs . . . when you go to trials, you are trekking through that jungle, up and down. And it’s a long way. You are tired and on less calories.
“It’s hot. It’s humid.
“So yeah, I did like to keep the squat routine up.”
Plymouth Argyle boss Wayne was cheering her on from home amid his hectic fixture list[/caption]
Coleen’s detective skills came to light in 2019 after a social media post accusing her rival and Sun jungle columnist Rebekah Vardy of leaking stories to the Press[/caption]
Rebekah leaving court during the Wagatha battle[/caption]
