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Coleen Rooney has said she rarely spends time with her husband Wayne ahead of entering the I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! jungle.
The TV personality, 38, has been married to the former Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney since 2008 and the couple share four sons; Kai, 13, Klay, 10, Kit, seven, and Cass, five, together.
When asked about facing a month away from her husband and children while she films the ITV programme in Australia, Rooney said the family are already distanced.
Speaking to MailOnline, Rooney admitted she and the former England captain “barely see each other” as his new job as manager of the Championship football team Plymouth Argyle keeps him away from home.
Instead, Wayne lives most of the week in Salcombe, Devon – a five hour drive away from the family’s home in Cheshire – and drives home to see his wife and children at the weekend.
“Wayne comes back once a week, sometimes twice, depending on the fixtures,” she said. “Usually, he has Sunday off so he might come home.
“He’ll come home on a Saturday evening and spend Sunday with us, depending on what the boys have got on,” Rooney explained.
“Time together is limited, more so than ever now because of the travelling and stuff.”
Rooney detailed that their family managed to spend a “nice” day together at their 11-year-olds football tournament before she flew to Australia for I’m a Celebrity.
However, as Rooney joins former Strictly star Oti Mabuse and McFly singer Danny Jones in the jungle, Wayne will continue living in Devon while her mother Colette will look after their four sons.
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Despite the arrangement the TV personality said her husband is “supportive” of her decision to appear on the programme and revealed he was the last person she rang before her phone was confiscated.
“I just checked on everything,” she explained. “So, it was just, ‘good luck’ – and I just wanted to see if the kids got off to school okay.”
Rooney is said to have secured the biggest deal in the show’s history, which would surpass that of Farage and presenter Noel Edmonds with a fee of over £1.5m.
Ahead of her arrival in the jungle, Rooney, who recently won the high-profile “Wagatha Christie” libel case filed against her by Rebekah Vardy, said she wanted to “draw a line under” the saga.
“That’s a place that I’ve been, I’ve dealt with it,’ she said. ‘In my life now, I’m just moving forward and not looking back. ‘That’s something I’ve done my whole life, dealt with things and moved forward at the time and got on.
“There are more important things to think about with the family and kids.”
Rooney will follow in the footsteps of Vardy, who entered the I’m A Celeb jungle in 2017 and was the third campmate of the cohort to be eliminated.
Vardy has said she hopes her nemesis will be forced to each “bull’s penis, ostrich bum and humble pie” during the show’s gruelling challenges.
“I think she always wanted my life, she’s following in my footsteps,” she added.