FUMING Geri Halliwell has demanded her scandal-hit husband Christian Horner cut contact with the female colleague he is accused of sexting.
The Spice Girl, who staged a public show of support for F1 boss Horner in Bahrain, wants the employee “out of the picture”.
Devastated Geri, 51, is also understood to have laid down ground rules over her hubby’s future behaviour — including on messages he sends on his phone.
It was also reported that the woman at the centre of the sexts storm has struck up a close friendship with another senior figure in Horner’s Red Bull team.
Meanwhile, tensions mounted after top driver Max Verstappen’s dad warned the team will “explode” if Horner, 50, stays.
A showbiz source said: “Although she smiled for the cameras at the grand prix, Geri has laid down some strict ground rules.
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“One is that Christian cuts or reduces contact with the woman — but that is difficult because of her role at Red Bull.
“And she has definitely had her say over what messages he sends. For obvious reasons, Geri would like the female colleague — who she knew before her appointment — to be out of the picture as much as possible.
“But they cannot sack her as there are no grounds to do so.”
An F1 insider said Geri, mum to Horner’s seven-year-old son, had shown “nothing but support” to her husband.
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It comes after the pair shared an awkward hug and kiss for the cameras in the Middle East.
The paddock source added: “Christian will be heading to Saudi Arabia for the race next weekend and I doubt Geri will be there — but that is because she is incredibly busy.”
A torrent of sexually suggestive messages were leaked after Horner was cleared of “coercive behaviour” towards the female employee in a Red Bull probe.
Some appeared to show him asking for pics and discussing a solo sex act in a plane toilet.
Horner has not commented on the messages, sent anonymously last Thursday to 149 F1 figures including journalists.
Meanwhile, Red Bull pulled a promo video over the weekend after trolls targeted Horner’s accuser.
The 11-minute Race to Miami film, featuring the team boss, was set to “private” on YouTube after a string of vicious comments aimed at the female employee.
A spokesman for Red Bull Racing insisted: “There is no issue and we are focusing on the racing.
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“The team is united.”
A spokeswoman for Geri was approached for comment.
How Christian Horner’s shock texts were leaked
By Ben Hunt
IT was an anonymous email sent and designed for maximum impact.
It landed in my inbox almost 24 hours to the minute since Christian Horner was cleared of any wrongdoing following Red Bull’s internal investigation.
Other names included Liberty Media chief Greg Maffei, who owns the rights to F1. The FIA president, Mohammed Ben Sulayem and F1 CEO Stefano Dominacali.
The F1 team bosses were also included for good measure. As was Max Verstappen’s father, Jos.
It was from an anonymous sender, the title was simply the date – ‘Feb Twenty Nine’.
Inside it was a Google Drive link containing 79 files claiming to be the evidence from the independent investigation.
There is no way of knowing if they were real or fake yet irrespectively it sent another shockwave through the F1 paddock before this season had even started.
Horner was sitting on the team’s pitwall during second practice in Bahrain when the email dropped.
After the session, he walked out of the team’s garage and into the hospitality unit where he remained as the nuclear fallout began.
He’d survived the outcome of the internal investigation into improper conduct following a complaint from a female colleague.
One wonders whether he will survive this time after this very public humiliation – again, irrespective if they were indeed real or fake.
Just hours earlier, McLaren’s CEO Zak Brown and Mercedes boss Toto Wolff, called on the sport’s governing body, the FIA, demanding transparency.
“I just read the statement, which was pretty basic,” said Wolff. “My personal opinion is we can’t really look behind the curtain.
“There is a lady in an organisation that has spoken to HR and said there was an issue and it was investigated and yesterday the sport has received the message that it’s all fine, we’ve looked at it.
“I believe with the aspiration as a global sport, on such critical topics, it needs more transparency and I wonder what the sport’s position is?
“We’re competitors, we’re a team and we can have our own personal opinions or not. But it’s more like a general reaction or action that we as a sport need to assess, what is right in that situation and what is wrong.
“Are we talking with the right moral approach, with the values based on the speculation that is out there? As a sport, we cannot afford to leave things vague and opaque on critical topics like this, because this is going to catch us out.”
Brown added: “It’s the responsibility ultimately of the organisers of Formula One, the owners of Formula One, to make sure that all the racing teams and the personnel and the drivers and everyone else involved in the sport are operating in a manner in which we all live by.
“I don’t think it’s the teams’ roles and responsibilities. That’s up to FIA and Formula One to ultimately decide and ask what they feel gives them the level of transparency they need to ultimately come to their conclusion and we just have to count on them that they fulfil that obligation to all of us.”
The emailed file will only increase that pressure in the form of scrutiny on Horner – who has always denied the accusations.
It does also put Red Bull in a tricky position.
Should the emailed file be legitimate and have made up elements from the initial report, which had been thoroughly examined and presented by the independent KC, then surely this is nothing new to them and their decision to stick with their team principal remains.
To perform a u-turn on that simply now they have become public would possibly see criticism that they intended to keep their report private to save face.
Whatever the outcome, it is a mess for the world champions.
Reports of a wedge driven between Horner and Verstappen’s father have grown in recent weeks.
So it was interesting that Jos Verstappen was in the paddock and wearing a team jacket and seemed unmoved to the chaos happening around him
Source: Motorsport - thesun.co.uk
