After a summer of delighting us with his no-nonsense World Cup punditry, Wayne Rooney has jetted off to Australia to head into the I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! jungle.

The 41-year-old is following in the footsteps of his wife, Coleen Rooney – who set the bar high when she finished as runner-up to Danny Jones in 2024.

While Wayne has been a tabloid fixture for decades, his stint Down Under gives us a chance to get to know the former Everton and Manchester United footballer a little better.

Inside Wayne and Coleen’s marriage

Childhood sweethearts Wayne and Coleen met when they were growing up in Croxteth, Liverpool, and started dating aged 16, shortly after they’d finished school.

By this point, Wayne’s football career had already taken off and, having played in Everton’s youth sides since he was just nine years old, the centre-forward made his debut in the first team aged 16 in 2002 – becoming the Premier League’s youngest goalscorer at the time when he put his side 1-0 up against Everton just days before his 17th birthday. He made his England debut the following year.

Off the pitch, his romance with Coleen blossomed and Wayne got down on one knee in October 2003, though his choice of location wasn’t exactly romantic. In her 2023 memoir My Account, Coleen said Wayne had been planning to propose at a Chinese restaurant, but delayed popping the question after they had a tiff – pulling over on the way home to do it instead. “I hadn’t expected Wayne to pop the question under the lights of an Esso garage,” she wrote. “It’s not the image a girl conjures up when she thinks about a marriage proposal as a rule.”

Nevertheless, Coleen said yes and at 22 years old, the couple married in June 2008 in Portofino, Italy, with OK! Magazine paying a reported £2.5m to cover the big day – £1.5m more than the mag shelled out for the Beckhams’ nuptials.

The Rooneys moved into a £1.3m mansion and it wasn’t long before they started a family, welcoming their first son, Kai, in 2009. Three more boys have followed: Klay, born in 2013, Kit in 2016 and Cass in 2018.

As has been well-documented, the pair’s relationship has often been far from perfect and Wayne has been at the centre of numerous cheating allegations. Notably, the Sunday Mirror reported in 2010 that Wayne had slept with a sex worker during his wife’s pregnancy a year prior, and future Big Brother star Helen Wood also alleged Wayne paid her to have a threesome.

In 2017 – while Coleen was expecting their fourth child – Wayne was arrested and charged with drink-driving after being pulled over in the early hours of the morning, while behind the wheel of a car belonging to a woman in her twenties.

On both occasions, Coleen left and spent time away from her husband, before later reconciling. She said in a post on social media after the 2017 incident: “I know I would be fine on my own, with just me and my children, but I don’t want to live like that, I want to try and continue our marriage and live as a family, because that’s what I want to do. I know my own mind and it’s something I want to try and work on... Yes, it has been a s*** time.”

The couple’s two eldest children have followed in their dad’s footballing footsteps, with Kai, 16, playing for Manchester United’s academy side while Klay, 13, has played for their Under-12s.

The Rooneys’ estimated net worth

As Wayne cemented his status as one of the greatest players in Premier League history, he raked in millions from earnings and sponsorships. Appearing on podcast The Overlap last year, Wayne revealed he earned more than £300k per week after signing a five-year deal with Manchester United in 2014.

Meanwhile, Coleen forged her own showbiz career, penning columns for Closer and OK!, and fronting shows including ITV’s Coleen’s Real Women, which saw her search for members of the public to post in advertising campaigns. After releasing a workout DVD in 2005, she also scored a £3m campaign with George at Asda and later struck another deal with Littlewoods.

Over the years, the Rooneys have amassed an estimated net worth of £200m, with ex-footballer Wayne – who turned to management and then punditry after his playing career ended – thought to have a net worth of £185m, while Coleen’s is reportedly around £15m.

But when it comes to I’m A Celebrity, Wayne’s fee comes nowhere close to what Coleen was paid two years ago. The mum-of-four was reportedly paid £1.5m for her stint in the jungle – which proved to be a worthwhile investment for ITV, as she won over viewers and finished as runner-up. Meanwhile, Wayne is allegedly receiving £800,000 for heading into the jungle this year.

Coleen’s hefty paycheck was largely thanks to the attention she garnered after the already-infamous Wagatha Christie incident and subsequent legal battle with Rebekah Vardy. Wayne was by his wife’s side as she attended the High Court trial and in the years since the 2022 verdict went in Coleen’s favour, the Rooneys have steadily built their joint brand. Earlier this year, their reality series The Real Rooneys debuted on Disney+.