While the sporting world focuses on Kyle Walker’s speed, agility, strength and endurance on the football field, his wife’s icy gaze as she watched from the stands last week told us everything we needed to know about his achievements so far as husband.
Did Annie Kilner, mother of four of Walker’s sons, know that nine days ago his ex-lover and arch-enemy Lauryn Goodman was sitting 70 yards away, on the other side of the stadium in Frankfurt?
If she didn’t do it then, she will now. Annie, 32, is 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, to watch the team’s lackluster draw against Denmark, leaving her 10-month-old daughter — also by Walker — at home.
Lauryn has opened up in the pages of this newspaper about why she did it (she was fulfilling a secret promise Walker made to their son, she said), but Kyle doesn’t want to talk about it and neither does Annie.
Kyle Walker and Annie Kilner’s marriage is on the rocks after Kyle’s relationship with 33-year-old influencer Lauryn Goodman
Reality TV personality Lauryn has a four-year-old son Kairo with Kyle
The Walkers’ marriage is in jeopardy. He has been spending time with their brood – Roman, 11, Riaan, seven, Reign, five, and two-month-old Rezon – at the family’s £3.5million Cheshire pad, but has not been forgiven and remains in a rented house nearby.
“It’s amicable, but they’re still deciding what the future holds between them,” a source said. “Sometimes it looks like they’ll eventually get back together, but sometimes it doesn’t.”
The longer the estrangement lasts, the less chance there is of reconciliation – and the greater the chance of a costly and messy divorce.
What few know by now is this: Kyle’s relationship with his former mistress is reaching a defining moment in a championship match of its own. Because in just over a fortnight, Lauryn and Kyle, 34, will face off in London’s Family Court. Annie could be in attendance too.
There, a judge will determine the amount of child support for Lauryn’s youngest child during a hearing expected to last two days.
Kyle Walker is already supporting the children and it is believed that an out-of-court settlement has been discussed, but the feeling from the Walker camp is that they want the certainty of a legal ruling. Annie in particular is pushing for it.
Last year, Lauryn posted a heated rant against Kyle’s wife Annie, whom she accused of “causing” the public attention
Annie, 32, mother of Kyle’s four sons, attended England’s Euro 2024 match against Denmark at the Frankfurt Arena in Germany last week
Lauryn was also present with her son Kairo. Annie was said to be furious and hurt that Lauryn had come to the game uninvited
There was an earlier hearing on support for Kairo, which friends of Lauryn admit went “badly” for her – more on that later.
And it is this looming lawsuit that has derailed Lauryn’s planned series about ‘Footballer’s WAGs’.
It can be revealed that the four-part show was for ITV, had a budget of £2.5 million and Lauryn herself expected to earn a mid-six figure sum for her participation. She had founded a TV production company with her PR man Simon Boyle, Quick Brown Fox Entertainment. However, that doesn’t happen anymore.
“The simple truth is that I don’t think she understood clearly enough from the beginning what restrictions were placed on her in terms of NDAs and what she could say about Kyle and the kids,” the source said.
‘ITV feels that, as it stands, it cannot make the show it wants to make. It is possible that they will come back to it later this year or early next year, but at the moment that is not the case yet.’
Former newspaper director Simon Boyle is also said to have cut ties with Lauryn in connection with the deal’s collapse, although he declined to comment.
It’s a tangled web. You can understand why a close friend of Lauryn’s tells me he fears she is being “damaged” by the situation where she uses social media to polish her image.
Some think the standoff between her and the Walkers is hurting everyone involved. It seems to have pushed Lauryn to emotional extremes. Last year, she posted an intemperate rant against Kyle’s wife Annie, whom she accused of “fueling” public attention.
Whether Annie knew that Kyle’s ex-lover and her nemesis Lauryn was sitting just 70 meters away on the other side of the stadium in Frankfurt nine days ago is unclear.
It appears the extent of Kyle’s affair with Lauryn is still unfolding in his relationship with wife Annie
She seemed to threaten her by saying, “Remember, what goes around comes around.”
She followed this up by posting a photo of a dog muzzle with the hashtag: ‘putamuzzleonit’. That’s undoubtedly unpleasant behavior, and attorneys have been looking at the possibility of filing a harassment suit against Lauryn on Annie’s behalf.
However, people close to Lauryn say she should be pitied, not condemned.
I was told, ‘She’s someone who reads absolutely every word that’s written about her. She’s got very thin skin. She sits at home with her baby reading all this stuff and it’s horrible.’
The fallout from an affair that produced two children has certainly been seismic. To 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 lawyer’s office and contact was resumed. In October 2022, after a trip to London for groin surgery, Kyle met Lauryn again and in August 2023, their second child was born.
To complicate matters, Annie also became pregnant later that year, news of which Kyle tried to keep quiet, in case, as he put it, everything went wrong. It was blowing 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 ran outside with Annie as mascots for an England match, a source said, in support of Lauryn: ‘It’s a shame to see children wheeling out as part of an argument between adults. Lauryn couldn’t care less and says he’ll soon be an overweight bald nobody.’
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the hostilities earlier this year, an invitation to the Euros was not forthcoming and Lauryn went on her own. Reactions to her journey were mixed, with many telling her on social media that they were ‘disgusted’ by what she had done.
A friend of Lauryn’s said, “She’s someone who gets really angry and it’s hard to reason with her. The other side has a lot of money and a lot of lawyers. The fact is Kyle promised her heaven on earth and sent her gifts.”
Kyle, who earns £160,000 a week, supports Lauryn and their children and has bought her a £2.5million house in Brighton.
But a friend says, “She could be living a comfortable, normal life, but she wants more and feels this is her due.”
During their last court case, she did not get the amount of money she asked for. A friend says: ‘Things went badly for her the last time. She blames her lawyer, who allegedly told her to ask for everything. This time it will be different.’
As for her future, she will be appearing on Celebs Go Dating on Channel 4 and is considering becoming a Celebrity Big Brother.
And as for Kyle and Annie? It seems the extent of the damage his affair caused is still visible.
A buddy says, “Kyle was an idiot. She [Lauryn and Kyle] have no contact, but the stress of her media appearances was enormous. If Annie had been a different person, it would have broken her.
“She was genuinely concerned about the health of their unborn child when Lauryn chose to reveal the situation to the world.
“Constantly pushing her children forward is harming her and harming the children. And it hurts Annie and Kyle and their children, too.”