A Look Back At Young Wayne And Coleen Rooney, Who Met As Teenagers in Liverpool

Let's walk down memory lane with Wayne and Coleen Rooney

Wayne and Coleen Rooney

by Nikki Peach |
Published on

Okay fine, we can't exactly call Wayne and Coleen Rooney's love story a fairytale (the scandals speak for themselves), but we can all appreciate its value in the pop culture canon.

Meeting as teenagers in secondary school in Liverpool, they are the very definition of childhood sweethearts. Wayne was on the cusp of football greatness, soon to make his professional debut for Everton, and Coleen was the well-fake-tanned teenager by his side. Her future as a legal eagle lay before her.

Thanks to Wayne's rising profile as a football prodigy, what would have been a normal teenage relationship in any other circumstances quickly became of public interest. Coleen, a first generation noughties WAG, was even papped on her way to school.

However, they didn't let that stop them – nor the various cheating allegations, drink driving charges and Wagatha Christie sagas that have punctuated the relationship in the years that followed.

In 2003, an 18-year-old Wayne allegedly proposed to a then-17-year-old McLoughlin at a petrol station with an emerald-cut diamond ring worth £46,000. Apparently they were meant to go out for a meal but Wayne couldn't wait to ask, with Coleen's mum later revealing 'they never went out for the meal. They came home and had corned beef hash'.

As Coleen reminded us while speaking to her fellow campmates on I'm A Celeb, it's easy to forget about those early years when they were just two teenagers from Liverpool thrust into the jaws of fame.

Now the proud parents of four sons, and icons in the eyes of many, let's look back at Wayne and Coleen's early years in all their glory.

Young Wayne and Coleen Rooney

Nikki Peach is a writer at Grazia UK, working across pop culture, TV and news. She has also written for the i, i-D and the New Statesman Media Group and covers all things TV for Grazia (treating high and lowbrow shows with equal respect).

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