Coleen Nolan: 'Injunction footballer is heartless'

Coleen Nolan has admitted that she "truly" believes the general public have a right to know what is happening in celebrities' private lives.

The Loose Women panellist spoke out against the use of super-injunctions in her latest column for The Mirror.

Branding the Premier League footballer who had an affair with Big Brother star Imogen Thomas a "total idiot" and "heartless", Nolan suggested that the sportsman's infidelity would have been "very old news" by now if he had not tried to hide it.

"OK, so that would have involved the uncomfortable task of breaking the news of his duvet dalliances to his wife early on, but he's had to do that anyway because of all the hoo-ha his injunction caused," she wrote.

"But having to tell her after the injunction was granted meant the poor woman had the double whammy of discovering that not only was her husband a cheat, he was a cheat who was cynically prepared to operate a fabulously complicated lie to keep her and everyone else in the dark.

"Before his belated admission, Mrs X was probably in the same situation as the rest of the country, wondering who this secret philandering family man could be."

Nolan went on to discuss her own "horrific" experiences of being betrayed in her first marriage.

"When his affairs were revealed in a newspaper it was almost a relief. it I wasn't mad after all, he had been lying to me all that time," she said. "Reading that the man you love has betrayed you at the same time as a million other people pick up their morning paper across the country is utterly gut-wrenching.

"But from that point on it can't really get any worse. And only then can you begin to start a rescue operation and work out exactly what it is you both want."

She continued: "Celebrities who ask for injunctions keep repeating that it is to protect their families. Isn't that what they should think about before they jump into bed with some passing lads' mag totty? And certainly it appears that it isn't just their family that they want to protect - it's their reputation, their career and their arrogant belief that with such vast wealth nothing is out of their control. Meanwhile, every time Mr X's wife pops out to buy a pint of milk, every time she passes anyone in a street, she knows They Know. The shop assistant, the neighbour, the passerby - They Know.

"Mr X has behaved callously towards his wife - as have all these other injunction junkies - and I feel a real genuine sorrow for all the wronged wives in these cases.

"And I truly believe the public have a right to know what happens in their lives of people in the spotlight. Celebrities and sportspeople can't expect the benefits and wealth of life in the public eye if they're not prepared for its downside too."

Nolan concluded: "I believe any marriage can withstand an affair if both sides genuinely want to address the faults in their marriage and repair them. But sadly I fear the level of deceit in this situation may have dealt this relationship a critical blow. I hope I'm wrong."

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