Saturday 14 May 2022 12:34 AM JANE FRYER: Even Wayne Rooney's black belt in marital crisis management ... trends now

Wayne Rooney has weathered many uncomfortable moments during his tumultuous 19-year relationship with Coleen, Queen of Wags.

There were those ill-advised visits to 48-year-old grandmother prostitute Patricia Tierney, also known as Auld Slapper, when he was just 16.

Then that unfortunate incident with prostitute Jennifer Thompson, when Coleen was pregnant with their first son, Kai. And oh yes, that threesome with Jen and another lady called Helen Wood.

Add in a spot of hard partying and drink-driving with a woman called Laura Simpson – plus that weird unexplained photo from last year of the 36-year-old former England player passed out in a chair in a £60-a-night Manchester hotel room as three 21-year-old girls danced around in their skimpies – and you get the picture.

Over and over, his indiscretions have been splashed across front pages as Constant Coleen has raised four teeny Wayne lookalikes without complaint – riding out the storms in style on sunbeds in Dubai, Portugal, Barbados (repeat).

Little wonder that, by all accounts, she rattled through 72 holidays and 107 bikinis in their first decade of marriage – good for her! But even with Wayne’s black belt in marital crisis management, the nightmare of this £3million legal Wagathon must surely be testing him.

For starters, there’s the indignity of being wedged, in his best blue suit, into the narrow seating of Court 13 as he’s ridiculed on social media for looking like ‘a giant hairy potato’ and an ‘obese Russian assassin’. (These unforgiving court sketches are doing him no favours.)

And that’s after he’s had to lug Coleen’s massive second designer handbag in every day, like a giant hired lackey. (Dainty Chanel for Queen C, galumphing Fendi for poor Wayne).

But most of all, he has to watch on forlorn, while his wife, channelling Eighties cop show Miami Vice yesterday in a £100 white Zara suit (teamed with that £4,480 handbag and one lovely £620 white Gucci loafer), is forced to hash it out in this most catty of cat fights.

How he must yearn to be anywhere else as the misery unfurls. Right now we’re back in 2017 and hearing how his marriage was (yet again) on the rocks.

‘I was in a vulnerable situation. There had been some wrongdoing by my husband,’ said Coleen magnanimously.

He can barely watch! He’s looking anywhere – his feet, the floor, the middle distance, the court stenographer – other than at his wife. Though, of course, it is possible, given the rather extraordinary girth of his neck, that it’s simply just hard for him to turn his head to face her.

Perhaps. Or perhaps he’s simply too ashamed. Shame seems to be the recurrent theme of the day.

Before Coleen took the stand, we heard how Rebekah Vardy (who for some reason has come dressed as one of her legal team in dark suit, crisp white shirt and yodelling-Heidi hairdo) will forever be haunted by her uncharitable comments, back in 2004, about Peter Andre’s pocket rocket, and has subsequently reached out to Peter and his wife, Emily, with personal messages. 

She hasn’t heard back. Perhaps Wayne could hop up and say a few sorrys, too. It might even perk him up – he certainly needs it. By mid- afternoon he looked almost catatonic!

He only started out of his heavy gloom with a burst of blinking and foot jiggling when Hugh Tomlinson QC, Vardy’s lawyer, said to the court: ‘You might believe Derby County are going to win the Premiership in two years’ time but it doesn’t mean they’re going to.’

Which, given Derby County were relegated last month, was a bit unkind. Wayne, of course, is their manager.

Poor, poor Wayne. He’s certainly not all bad. During the lunch break he happily posed for a selfie with a fan in a Liverpool tracksuit and, later, when asked to sign one of the court artist’s ‘impressions’ of him, instantly obliged.

And it’s surely more than a teeny bit unfair that, while he has to sit through seven days of this endless Wagtastic witter, Leicester City supposedly can’t spare Jamie Vardy for a single afternoon.

Compared with Rebekah Vardy’s exploding car crash of the last few days, Coleen is hardly box office. But she’s clear, confident, comfortable in her carefully chosen outfit – and words – and as dignified as one can be when the soft underbelly of your marriage is exposed in all its sordid detail.

Roll on Monday...

Coleen reveals her secret split over Rooney’s ‘wrongdoing’ after nightclub

By Vanessa Allen

Coleen Rooney split from husband Wayne after he was caught drink-driving with another woman in the car, she revealed at the Wagatha Christie libel trial yesterday.

Mrs Rooney, 36, who rarely speaks about her marriage, admitted she feared the relationship might be over when the former England captain was stopped by police after leaving a nightclub with Laura Simpson.

Mother-of-four Mrs Rooney said she launched her so-called Wagatha Christie sting operation because she felt betrayed that someone had leaked information to The Sun during their marriage crisis.

Mrs Rooney told the High Court yesterday: ‘I was in a vulnerable situation. There had been some wrongdoing by my husband.

‘I was spending a lot of time at my parents’ house. I didn’t know how my marriage was going to work out. Me and Wayne were trying to figure out our relationship and where we were going.

‘But I didn’t want people to know that... I hadn’t settled on “This is it, we are getting back together”.’

Wayne Rooney was driving office worker Miss Simpson’s car when he was arrested for drink-driving in Cheshire in 2017.

In an interview on This Morning Miss Simpson, then 29, said the pair had enjoyed ‘a kiss, a hug’, and that Mrs Rooney had then called her to demand to know what happened. 

Mrs Rooney, who met her future husband when they were both 12, said she had taken it as a personal betrayal when details of a

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