IT IS a question most, if not all, who have followed this unsavoury saga have repeatedly asked (whilst scrolling through the latest plot twist): When will this end?
For over a year now, football‘s love cheat extraordinaire Kyle Walker has been unable to escape a scandal of his own making – and God knows he’s tried.
A BBC podcast and a football academy for under-privileged kids in his home city followed in a bid to soften his much-maligned public image, but to no avail.
He even moved to Italy to join AC Milan on loan until the end of the season in the hope of fleeing the feeding frenzy.
But if he thought he could start afresh abroad, his ex-mistress Lauryn Goodman, who he secretly fathered two children with, has news for him.
Last week, in a set of carefully choreographed pictures she beamed in front of a removal van and revealed she too was moving to Italy in order to be closer to him.
Ironic then, that the first person to pose the question ‘when will this end?’, was Lauryn herself.
And yet, if you dig deep enough, you’ll find a paper trail of evidence that suggests she is deliberately willing the saga to carry on.
Countless newspaper interviews followed the bombshell news in 2020 that she was expecting a “miracle” baby with Kyle, 34.
Even more followed after she detonated his marriage to wife Annie Kilner in December 2023 by revealing he had secretly fathered a second child with her.
For the record, Annie has done none (offers have been made, but each one turned down).
And Kyle has only ever done one sit-down: a full mea-culpa with me when the scandal erupted in January last year.
In her latest interview, published this month, Lauryn invited OK! Magazine into the lavish £2.4million four-bedroom home Kyle bought for her and the kids in East Sussex.
Glossy pictures across multiple pages accompanied an interview in which she revealed her plans to move.
She teased: “For the last year I wished to have the option to move abroad because, with all of the drama, I’d like a life reset – but I’m not sure how that looks for us at the minute or what that entails.”
She had previously contemplated a move to Dubai amid fevered speculation that Kyle was sizing up a move to the Saudi pro league.
But she was adamant – remember, this was only days ago – when she insisted: “It makes no difference to me where Kyle is, he could be on Mars right now for all I care.”
And yet, here she is packing up and preparing to move to Italy to be on his very doorstep.
There was no furniture on the lorry, no plants, kids toys – just boxes. And in a complete departure from anyone who has ever moved house, Lauryn was positively beaming from ear to ear.
Surely, this wasn’t a stunt to obtain media coverage, a constructed plot twist to secure column inches?
This, the same woman who insisted in yet another interview in February last year: “I need this to end.”
One has to wonder why on earth she would subject herself – and their children – to the ongoing agony and heartache she has long since documented in the column inches of this and other newspapers.
In her OK! interview Lauryn, 34, says: “I’ve been through hell and back fighting for my children and then absolutely being crucified for it in the process.
“There were days where I would just cry my eyes out. I’d think, can I continue with this?
“I have to, for my children, because I’m the only one that they can depend on. But how strong does one person have to be?”
Her big move to Italy is supposedly scheduled to take place this week – as Kyle settles in with his new teammates in the iconic San Siro stadium.
But this is not the first time she has prepared to follow the England full-back.
In May 2021, she wanted to move 245 miles from her home in Brighton to the upmarket Cheshire village – and footballers enclave – of Alderley Edge.
EXPLOSIVE MOVE
She viewed an £895,000 five bedroom property on a plush new development – just five miles from Kyle and Annie’s home.
At the time, a source said: “As if things weren’t difficult already, this is going to take it to another level completely.”
The explosive move never materialised after Kyle increased her housing budget from £1.85million to £2.4million in a bid to placate her to maintain her distance.
There were repeated hints on social media too of the paternity of her second child to Kyle, a baby girl born in the Summer of 2023.
It fed feverish speculation online and drove the number of followers to her Instagram account.
In response to claims she had given birth to a baby with “another footballer” she replied: “Just to clarify I have not had a baby with ‘another footballer’ as per news articles.
“I know there is speculation around little one’s father and like I’ve stated publicly when the time is right.”
Followers were quick to question if she had stressed it wasn’t ‘another’ footballer because Kyle was, in fact, the father of both children.
And on her Instagram bio she wrote: “Mummy to @kairowalker & KW”. Posts with a “countdown” to a new post followed.
In his withering judgement – published last July – Judge Edward Hess was scathing of her behaviour.
She laid a trail of breadcrumbs and had “not just cooperated with, but actively instigated” the feeding frenzy, he concluded.
He added: “Throughout 2023, he (Kyle) sought to keep secret the fact that he was Kinara’s father.
“It is clear from the evidence that he was understandably embarrassed about this fact and anxious about how his wife would react when she found out.
“In his attempts to persuade the mother to go along with the retention of secrecy, the father gave way to many of the financial demands of the mother which he might otherwise have resisted.
Timeline of Kyle Walker & Annie Kilner’s relationship
- Early years – Kyle and Annie first meet in Sheffield when she was 15 and he was 17
- Euro 2016 – Walker caught messaging Playboy model Carla Howe
- April 2019 – Annie dumps Kyle after his alleged romps with reality TV star Laura Brown
- April 2020 – Kyle allegedly hosts sex party with two escorts during covid-19 lockdown
- February 2020 – Lauryn Goodman gives birth to Kairo, her son with Walker
- November 2021 – Walker and Kilner marry in secret
- March 2023 – Lauryn announces her second pregnancy
- Spring 2023 – Kyle allegedly flashes and kisses another woman in a Vodka Revolution bar in Cheshire
- August 2023 – Lauryn gives birth to a daughter
- January 2024 – Annie announces split from Kyle after two years of marriage. It emerges Kyle is the dad of Lauryn’s second child. Kyle begs for forgiveness in exclusive Sun interview. Lauryn brands him a ‘pathological narcissist’
- October 2024 – Annie files for divorce
- January 2025 – Kyle moves to Italy alone, with Annie refusing to join him.
“The evidence before me has amply demonstrated that the mother was able to leverage these substantial increases by hinting that she would go public on the paternity issue.
“She also threatened that if she did not get what she wanted she would select a home a stone’s throw away from his in Cheshire…an idea which she knew horrified the father.
“If the father thought that these rather generous house budget increases would keep his paternity a secret, he was to be disappointed.
“The mother plainly had no intention of keeping the matter secret.”
I won’t be scapegoated or bullied and made to feel like a villain.
Lauryn Goodman
But there was more.
In the Summer last year, as Kyle and his England teammates plotted a course to the final of the Euros, Lauryn travelled to Germany with son Kairo to watch him “in real life“.
But she didn’t go to Frankfurt’s Deutsche Bank stadium alone – she was naturally accompanied by a journalist and photographer.
In an exclusive interview, featuring a blow-by-blow account of their trip, Lauryn said: “We are not here to please other people. It’s about Kairo and what is best for him and what is going to make him happy.
“I won’t be scapegoated or bullied and made to feel like a villain. My children are my number one priority and they always will be.
“Luckily I’m a strong woman and mother for them.”
Lauryn even befriended Kyle’s neighbour in Cheshire – urging her to spy on him over the garden fence.
Jasmine David, 51, found herself caught in the middle of their bitter feud after befriending the Instagram influencer online.
She was already at loggerheads with the England and Manchester City ace, 34, over a boundary dispute and took pity on Lauryn.
In one text message Lauryn suggested Jasmine spy on Kyle and Annie – writing: “Needed to record that she was done. FML. Need all that on record. So BADLY.”
Jasmine replied: “You can’t record somebody without their permission is (sic) illegal xx.”
Lauryn wrote back: “Not to sell that you donut. You can have your phone recording in your garden.”
Lauryn was madly in love with Kyle – that much was abundantly clear. I suspect he told her things she wanted to hear.
In another message she speculates over the birthday plans for Kyle’s wife, model Annie Kilner.
She refers to Instagram posts from Annie’s sister, Sian, who was booked in for a spray tan in Sheffield ahead of the celebrations.
Lauryn texts: “Soooo I think they’re going out at the weekend. But probably not in Cheshire and I reckon he’ll join her, don’t you?”
SPY CLAIMS
In fact, Annie partied at an Italian restaurant in Alderley Edge to celebrate her 30th.
She posted pictures of her and Kyle – alongside the caption: “Wasn’t so bad turning 30 after all.”
A day later, Lauryn posted a photograph of her in the same restaurant.
Jasmine recalls growing increasingly uneasy as Lauryn obsessed over the Three Lions defender.
She likened it to the 1987 thriller “Fatal Attraction”, starring Michael Douglas and Glenn Close.
She said: “Lauryn was madly in love with Kyle – that much was abundantly clear. I suspect he told her things she wanted to hear.
“And she naturally wanted the relationship to develop further and wouldn’t let go when he chose Annie.
“It spiralled into an unhealthy obsession.
“I was Kyle’s neighbour and have been for years, but the truth is she knew more about what he was up to than I did.
“I urged her to move on and live a happy life and to focus on her two beautiful children.
“But she got caught up in it all and it got wildly out of hand.”
Despite her many interviews, Lauryn had uncharacteristically appealed through her lawyers for Judge Hess to keep his financial remedies judgement private.
It was perhaps understandable, given the likely contents.
And so, in his final few paragraphs, Judge Hess lifted the car bonnet to reveal the inner workings of this particular scandal.
He wrote: “It would be a nonsense, opening the court to ridicule, to try to redact or anonymise this judgment to prevent identification of the parties.
“A perusal of the many hundreds of newspaper articles published about these matters clearly illustrates that the mother has not just cooperated with, but actively instigated, press coverage.
“It sits ill for a person to come to court arguing for privacy for her children when, just a very short while earlier, she took a payment from the press to visit the European football championship with her son dressed in an England football shirt with the name ‘Daddy’ on the back.
“If the children suffer any harm from the publicity of these matters, it has already happened, and it will largely be the result of the mother’s own decisions and actions.”
And so, as Lauryn embarks on yet another chapter in this oh-so-long saga, the question still remains: When will this end?
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
