Coleen McLoughlin is worth £6million in her own right, she’s pretty and – infuriatingly – likeable. Barely 21 and wearing red-soled Christian Louboutin heels, white blouse and smoky mascara, she looks like a schoolgirl dressed up in her mum’s threads as she comes chattering in.
She should be all too easy to envy – and loathe. Wayne Rooney’s photogenic fiancee has a wildly lucrative exercise video, a magazine column and TV show.
She is the £3million face of George at Asda, the author of a best-selling autobiography and has just launched her own “citrussy” perfume – Coleen X.
She’s even set the date for her wedding – sometime in 2008 – and is busy planning a lavish ceremony. “I’ve got to get cracking,” she says, breathlessly. “I’ve only got a year.”
But there’s no guile to her. She isn’t showing off – or even trying terribly hard. She’d just rather be busy. “My dad always says, ‘Never say bored’ – he hates that word. Yes, I could put my feet up. But I wouldn’t want that.
“When I was little I always had something on – dance lessons, drama. And I wanted a career. After school I worked at New Look – they gave me a discount off the clothes.
“But when I moved in with Wayne, I was pretty much just looking after the house. Then a magazine offered me a column. And it was my dream job – writing about fashion in a magazine I used to buy anyway. Since then, everything else has come to me. But people must have seen something and thought: ‘We’ll give Coleen a go’.”
As a working-class girl from Croxteth who left school with no A-Levels, her life has morphed beyond recognition. She and Wayne live behind electronic gates in a multi-million pound Cheshire pile, with a swimming pool, and personal gym.
At her glitzy 21st four months ago, her 300 guests were treated to stilt-walkers and female contortionists cavorting on mirrored plinths.
But Coleen is adamant that nothing of consequence has changed. “People think my life has altered dramatically but it hasn’t really. My life’s still my life – my friends and family and Wayne.
• Read More?