While we were in Germany I hadn’t been eating healthily or going to the gym. There’d be loads of carbs: potatoes and pasta with sauces. There wasn’t that much to do, so we’d go out to lunch and have a glass of wine and then go out for an evening meal really late at night. My eating hadn’t been normal for a while, but at the end of the day the important thing was getting away and relaxing with Wayne.
It was a great holiday. The idea was to sail around the south of France and drop in on places like Cannes and St Tropez and other ports along the way. One day we’d be in Monaco dancing at Jimmyz nightclub, the next we’d be in a bar in St Tropez watching France and Italy in the World Cup Final. Then we’d sail out to sea to sunbathe or maybe fool around on the jet-skis. We went to outdoor restaurants where the trees were full of fairy lights, really lovely, then clubs like VIP in St Tropez and beach bars like Nikki Beach where magnums of champagne are going round and everyone’s dancing until the early hours. We arrived in Cannes on Bastille Day and ate out under the stars at a private table at the end of a jetty in the harbour, while the most amazing firework display you could ever imagine, thousands of rockets, went off above our heads.
One day we’d be in Monaco dancing at Jimmyz nightclub, the next we’d be in a bar in St Tropez watching France and Italy in the World Cup Final.
The whole holiday was fantastic. We’d be in the VIP area of a club, when it wasn’t so long ago that I used to go to nightclubs and think, ‘Oooh, look at them in the VIP area.’ Being with other people made me think about everything all over again and enjoy things through their eyes. All our friends, they would be going, ‘Just think, we’re doing this, and next week we’re back to work.’ It’s great for me and Wayne to have family and friends like that around us because they bring us back down to earth. We try not to take things for granted but sometimes we forget how lucky we are.
It’s lovely to share such experiences with other people, but unfortunately they also get to see the more unpleasant side of being in the spotlight. The speedboats full of paparazzi, constantly circling. Reading stories about us in the newspapers the next day that are just not true. The attention we receive when out for the night, girls coming up to Wayne with no other intention than to make money out of a story.
I’m twenty-one years old now and I’ve grown up inside and out. I’ll always be the girl from Liverpool, but my life has changed in so many ways.
Whenever a girl asks for a photograph, they always say the first shot hasn’t worked out so they can have another. Always. Once we came out of a restaurant in Monaco and two girls came up asking to have their picture taken with Wayne. So Wayne posed while it was taken and then they asked for another one. On the second picture one of the girls started putting her arms all around Wayne, and you know that if that photo was sold to the newspapers they could just make up a story. It’s hard for Wayne because the fans are so supportive and play such an important part in his working life, but some people have different agendas other than simply having their picture taken with him. On that occasion I got hold of this girl’s hand and went, ‘You’re getting your picture but you don’t need to do that!’ She was French and asked if I was his girlfriend. I said it didn’t matter. In St Tropez it was unbelievable. Things like that make you see how sly people can be. Some girls can be really evil. I trust Wayne but I don’t always trust the people he might find himself around. People are so aware of how much money they can make from a small photo these days.
All that happened in just a few weeks, so you can imagine what the last few years have been like. At times it’s been crazy, like a fairytale, an amazing journey. I’m no longer the sixteen-year-old girl who appeared in the newspapers for the very first time after walking to school in that knee-length puffa jacket! I’m twenty-one years old now and I’ve grown up inside and out. I’ll always be the girl from Liverpool, but my life has changed in so many ways. And this is my story so far.
chapter two question: what’s my favourite sport? answer: cricket
From the very first day I appeared in the newspapers, people have been talking about my clothes and my fashion. That picture of me in the lower sixth, walking to St John Bosco High School, is always going to be with me. I look at it now and can’t help but laugh. It’s not something that makes me cringe, or that I’m ashamed about, because that was me back then. A sixteen-year-old, strolling to school with my puffa jacket on.
I’d been going out with Wayne for a good few months by then, and that day he was heading off to play for England. He’d been round to our house in the morning to pick something up, I can’t remember what it was, but the paparazzi must have followed him. Not that I was thinking about newspapers or photographers when I set off for school that morning. It was just a normal day. I’d meet up with my friend Kate and the two of us would take the same route as always, maybe chatting about last night’s telly or something similar. Then, that day, a man jumped out from behind some bushes and started taking photographs of me. Photographers really do hide behind bushes! He was snapping away, and I was shocked, but what do you do in that kind of situation? I sped up and kept walking. It just felt really weird.
Further up the street there was a block of flats with a car park in front. Kate and I passed it every day. You wouldn’t normally look twice at it, except on that day there was a car there with its bonnet open and a man peering inside, fixing his engine or something. That’s the way it seemed, except that the moment we walked past, the same man had a camera in his hand, pointing it at me over the top of the car bonnet, clicking away, taking pictures of me.
‘That’s unbelievable!’ That’s all I could say. That’s all my mates could say when I got to school. There was just this girly panic among my friends, like, what was happening? The buzz and chatter was still going on throughout assembly, so much so that one of the teachers came over to have a word. When she found out what had happened her first thought was to call my mum as soon as possible.
Mum went ballistic, but not quite how I’d imagined. I was on the phone telling her all that had happened that morning and her first worry was whether she would make the front pages the next day! ‘What if they got me?’ she asked me. ‘I’ve just been on the drive with nothing but my nightie on, pushing the wheelie bin out for the bin men!’
I said, ‘Oh, Mum! What do they want a picture of you for? They don’t want a picture of you and the wheelie bin.’
Maybe they did! But it made sense at the time and calmed Mum down a little.
But that was the end of the calm. The following Sunday one of the Sunday newspapers had printed a big picture of me. The telephone didn’t stop ringing, with aunties and my nan, everyone, calling up asking whether we’d seen it. Me in my puffa jacket right down to my knees and my school uniform underneath. Whatever I feel about the press now, there’s no denying that when you see yourself in the newspaper for the first time like that it’s an exciting feeling. You laugh at yourself being in this national newspaper, and it’s strange, and funny, but it’s exciting too. That day, I must have looked at that same picture at least fifty times. At least. But not once did I think what it would mean or what to expect in the years to come.
That was 2003, and although it seems like ages and ages ago it really wasn’t that far back. But things were different. In those days I can’t remember there being the same interest in footballers’ wives and girlfriends. Yeah, there was Victoria and David, and there was Footballers’ Wives on telly, but in real life the newspapers weren’t interested in taking pictures of footballers’ girlfriends for no reason – there had to be a story to go with it. Sure, I was seeing Wayne, and the way things were going with us I expected we’d be pictured together at some stage, but no way did I ever expect the press to be interested in just me.
You laugh at yourself being in this