While the sporting world has focused on Kyle Walker’s speed, agility, strength and stamina on the football pitch, his wife’s stony expression, watching from the stands last week, told us everything we needed to know about his performance thus far as a husband.
Did Annie Kilner, mother to four of Walker’s sons, know that, sitting 70 metres away on the opposite side of the Frankfurt stadium nine days ago was his ex-lover, and her arch-nemesis, Lauryn Goodman?
If she didn’t then, she does now. Annie, 32, was said to be furious and hurt that Lauryn had turned up, uninvited.
The 33-year-old influencer and reality TV personality had brought her four-year-old son Kairo, fathered by Walker, along to watch the side’s lacklustre draw with Denmark. She’d left her ten-month-old daughter — also by Walker — at home.
Lauryn’s had her say in the pages of this newspaper about her reasons for doing so (she was fulfilling a secret promise made by Walker to their son, she said), but Kyle won’t talk about it and neither will Annie.
Kyle Walker and Annie Kilner’s marriage is said to be hanging in the balance following Kyle’s relationship with 33-year-old influencer Lauryn Goodman
Reality TV personality Lauryn has four-year-old son Kairo with Kyle
The Walkers’ marriage hangs in the balance. He has been spending time with their brood: Roman, 11, Riaan, seven, Reign, five and two-month-old Rezon, in the family’s £3.5 million Cheshire pile, but hasn’t been forgiven and remains in a rented home nearby.
‘It is amicable but they are still deciding what the future between them will look like,’ says a source. ‘Sometimes it looks as if they are going to get back together in the end, and sometimes it doesn’t.’
The longer that the estrangement goes on, the less likely a reconciliation appears — and more likely a costly, and messy, divorce.
Meanwhile, what few know is this: the relationship between Kyle and his former mistress is reaching a decisive moment in a championship match of its own. For in just over a fortnight Lauryn and Kyle, 34, will face each other in the Family Court in London. It’s possible that Annie will attend, too.
There, over an expected two-day hearing, a judge will set a level of child support for the younger of Lauryn’s two children.
Kyle Walker already supports the kids and it’s believed settling out of court has been discussed, but the feeling from the Walker camp is that they want the certainty of a legal ruling. Annie, in particular, is insisting on it.
Last year, Lauryn posted an intemperate rant at Kyle’s wife Annie, who she accused of ‘igniting’ public attention
Annie, 32, mother to four of Kyle’s sons, attended England’s Euro 2024 game against Denmark at the Frankfurt Arena in Germany last week
Also in attendance was Lauryn with her son Kairo. Annie is said to be furious and hurt that Lauryn had turned up to the match uninvited
There was a previous hearing over support for Kairo, which friends of Lauryn concede ‘went badly’ for her — of which more later.
And it is this looming court date which has nixed Lauryn’s planned series on ‘Footballer’s WAGs’.
It can be revealed that the four-part show was for ITV, had a £2.5 million budget, and Lauryn herself was expecting to pocket a mid six-figure sum for taking part. She had set up a TV production company with her PR man Simon Boyle, Quick Brown Fox Entertainment. However, that isn’t happening any more.
‘The simple truth is that I don’t think she understood clearly enough from the start what the restrictions were on her in terms of non-disclosure agreements, and what she could say about Kyle and the children,’ says a source.
‘ITV feel like, as it stands, it can’t make the show that it would want to make. It is possible that they could come back to it later this year or early next, but at the moment it is off.’
And, tied to the collapse of that deal, former newspaper executive Simon Boyle, is also understood to have cut ties with Lauryn, although he declined to comment.
It’s a tangled web. You can see why a good friend of Lauryn tells me that he fears she is being ‘damaged’ by the situation, in which she uses social media to try to burnish her image.
Some think that the impasse between her and the Walkers is damaging all concerned. It seems to have driven Lauryn to emotional extremes. Last year, she posted an intemperate rant at Kyle’s wife Annie, who she accused of ‘igniting’ public attention.
Whether Annie was aware that Kyle’s ex-lover, and her arch-nemesis, Lauryn, was sitting just 70 meters away on the opposite side of the Frankfurt stadium nine days ago is unclear
It seems the extent of Kyle’s affair with Lauryn is still unfolding on his relationship with wife Annie
She appeared to threaten her by saying: ‘Just remember what goes around comes around’.
She followed it up by posting a picture of a dog muzzle with the hashtag: ‘putamuzzleonit’. That’s undoubtedly unpleasant behaviour, and lawyers have been looking into the possibility of bringing a harassment charge against Lauryn on behalf of Annie.
However, people close to Lauryn say that she should be pitied, rather than condemned.
I’m told: ‘She is someone who will read absolutely every word that is written about her. She is very thin-skinned. She will sit at home with her baby reading all that stuff and it is horrible.’
Certainly the repercussions of a fling, which produced two kids, have been seismic. To briefly recap, Lauryn gave birth to a son in April 2020, and later named Kyle as the father.
In August 2022, they saw each other at his solicitor’s office and contact was resumed. In October 2022, after travelling to London for groin surgery, Kyle met Lauryn once again and their second child was born in August 2023.
To complicate matters further, later that year Annie also got pregnant, news of which Kyle tried to keep quiet, in case, as he put it, everything blew. It blew anyway.
On December 27, 2023, Lauryn sent Annie an Instagram message, and the whole sorry story came out and the sniping continued.
In March, when Kyle’s children with Annie ran out as mascots before an England match, a source, in support of Lauryn, commented: ‘It’s a shame to see children wheeled out as part of a row between adults. Lauryn couldn’t be less bothered and says he will be an overweight bald nobody soon.’
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Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the hostilities earlier in the year, no invitation was forthcoming for the Euros and Lauryn went under her own steam. Reaction to her trip was mixed, with many letting her know on social media of their ‘disgust’ at what she had done.
A friend of Lauryn’s said: ‘She is a person who gets very upset and then it is hard to reason with her. The other side have a lot of money and a lot of lawyers. The fact is that Kyle did promise her the earth and he did send her gifts.’
Indeed, Kyle, who earns £160,000 a week, is supporting Lauryn and their children, and has bought her a £2.5 million house in Brighton.
But a friend says: ‘She could have a comfortable normal life, but she wants more and believes it is her due.’
At their last court date, she didn’t get the amount of money she asked for. A pal says: ‘It went badly for her the last time. She blames her lawyer who allegedly told her to ask for everything. It will be different this time around.’
As to her future, she will be appearing on Celebs Go Dating on Channel 4 and is considering Celebrity Big Brother.
As for Kyle and Annie? It seems the extent of the damage caused by his affair is still unfolding.
A pal says: ‘Kyle was an idiot. They [Lauryn and Kyle] have zero contact but the stress brought by her media appearances has been enormous. If Annie was a different person, it would have broken her.
‘She was genuinely worried for the health of their unborn child when Lauryn opted to announce the situation to the world.
‘The constant pushing forward of her children damages her and damages the children. And it damages Annie and Kyle and their children as well.’