Coleen Rooney Speaks Exclusively To Vogue About The Wagatha Christie Saga

The gates look normal enough, at least for this corner of Cheshire’s “golden triangle”. Black and impenetrable, they are perhaps a tad more sizeable than most – and, yes, there are the security cameras – but, as I exit my minicab and push the buzzer, I still can't quite believe that they will actually open.

Then – click – it happens. No voice on the intercom, no guard giving me the once over, just the hush of pure privacy as I re-enter the car, and it makes its way along the sort of drive I didn’t think people had anymore. It takes literal minutes to motor to the main house, over a bridge, across a reeded lake, all of it bordered by acre upon acre of lawns mown to cartoon perfection. Finally, eyes bugging at this point, one arrives at High Lake Manor itself – newly built after an Edwardian style, to the tune of some £20 million according to the tabloids, and finished only last year. It looks like a child’s drawing of a millionaire’s perfect home, I think, as I crunch across the gravel, up some ultra-clean stone steps to find that the front door is already opening.

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And there she is: Coleen. A woman who, by twin accidents of falling in love with a boy from school more than 20 years ago and, more recently, finding herself on one side of the foremost social media beef the country has ever witnessed, became, for a moment, one of the most famous, most mysterious, most ardently discussed, and perhaps most generally well-liked people in Britain. The woman who, of course, became synonymous with Wagatha Christie.

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"Hi," she says, and offers her hand.

She is barefoot, wearing a little white sundress with some lace inlay that she bought in Amsterdam while she was travelling to watch her son, Kai, play football. She’s tanned and ponytailed and smiley, yet top notes of restraint and common sense remain. She offers a cup of tea, and looks grateful and relieved when I say I’ll definitely take my shoes off because that new carpet of hers looks wow. Her husband, Wayne – legendary striker (does legendary begin to cover it?), now head coach at DC United in Washington, DC – is in the States and the four boys are at school, so aside from the Rooneys' charming mega-agent Paul Stretford popping by to say hello, the manor is serenely empty. Even the Disney+ crew who have been trailing her for the past few months are absent. "It’s brought up a lot of emotions," she says of filming the new, still-untitled documentary. "I felt like everyone else has spoken about it except me," she says. "And it’s my story to tell."

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Honestly, it’s taking every ounce of my willpower to not write a thousand more words here on the decor (bear with, I’ll have her take us on a little tour later), but for now I’ll just say that she guides us to the formal sitting room she says she never goes in, with its cluster of four – four! – crystal chandeliers, each the height of a goalkeeper, hanging above a profusion of grey and white soft furnishings that are so luxe and shimmery they appear almost pearlescent. With nothing but the distant hum of her gardeners’ strimming to disturb us, she places some pastel-coloured macarons and what I swear is a plate of M&S mini Swiss rolls between us, then says six magic words in her most delicious of Scouse accents: "Go on then, ask me anything."