On Wednesday night, when the news broke that Annie Kilner had filed for divorce from her husband, footballer Kyle Walker, the couple was found spending a quiet evening together at the family home in Cheshire, watching television and sharing a sofa
It may come as a surprise, but from this it can be deduced that their relationship and status are a little more complicated than it seems.
The couple, who was a boyfriend as a teenager, has been married since 2021 and has four children. And although Annie has kicked him out on numerous occasions, most recently in January of this year after discovering that he had fathered a second child with influencer Lauryn Goodman, they remain a couple, for now.
“They are continuing to work on the marriage,” says a Cheshire source. ‘The idea of a divorce has been put on hold for now. She has filed for divorce, that’s true, but it’s not an active plan.
Kyle Walker and Annie Kilner dressed up and looked happy at a charity fundraiser in 2019.
“She may not be able to get over the betrayal and then they end up breaking up, but they’re not there yet.”
The source adds: ‘Things are difficult but no final decision has been made as his main wish is the happiness of his children. Their history as a whole also influences it.”
The full truth of their rocky reunion, Annie’s demands for a settlement, and Kyle’s efforts to keep his family together is extraordinary.
A well-placed local friend told me this week that one of the options being considered is a “divorce without separation.”
In that eventuality, the couple would formally end the marriage, with Kyle giving millions of his £27million fortune to Annie, but they would continue to live together as husband, wife and co-parent.
The idea is that this way Annie would get the financial security she insists she needs to continue the relationship, and Kyle could live with the woman he insists he doesn’t want to give up on.
In fact, that’s a possibility that’s floating around in your head, but in this toxic WAG saga, it seems like anything, no matter how crazy, is possible.
Kyle has been living in the marital home since last month. He and Annie reconciled after spending some family time at a resort in Turkey with the children, followed by a beachside holiday in Wales over the summer.
Friends said the couple was trying to figure out their future from a position of togetherness.
What we now know is that sometime in late summer, Annie saw a lawyer and filed for divorce.
I’m told she was humiliated by Lauryn’s antics during the Euros in the summer, where she took her Kyle son, Kairo, to an England match wearing a shirt emblazoned with the word “Dad”, and was also allegedly shocked after finding out. . how much money Lauryn had extorted from Kyle when their support agreements went to court in July.
After the Euros, which Annie attended with her four children (Roman, 11, Riaan, seven, Reign, five, and Rezon, six months), a court case came over the child support agreements of Goodman with Walker, his son Kairo, four, and his daughter. Kinara, 13 months.
The judge ruled overwhelmingly in her favor and accused Goodman of treating the footballer like an “open checkbook” and repeatedly threatening him to get what she wanted.
Lauryn Goodman with her two children while shopping in Brighton
In his ruling, Judge Edward Hess dismissed many of Goodman’s claims, concluding that she was “unreliable” while stating that Walker “acted with dignity and generosity.”
Their demands included Walker paying for the maintenance of a hydraulic pool, a gardener charging £28 an hour, a car worth up to £70,000 every three years and an air conditioner costing around £33,000. Dismissing Goodman’s air conditioning claim, the judge said she could mitigate the high temperatures in her home “by installing a modestly priced electric fan.”
She had asked for £32,000 to install AstroTurf in the £2.4million house he had bought her to live in in Sussex. In court, Lauryn justified the need for the artificial grass pitch by stating that her daughter Kinara kicked a ball while crawling, which could make her a future English footballer.
The court heard that Walker agreed to some of Goodman’s demands but found others to be disproportionate, with her lawyers claiming she was making a “blatant attempt to exploit” the money for “personal benefit.”
Walker was ordered to pay £12,500 a month in child support, a figure he offered before the hearing began. He was also ordered to pay £30,000 for a car to be used by a nanny and other fees.
A friend says: ‘Annie went to see a divorce lawyer at the end of the summer and then filed for divorce. She was angry, she gets angry and shoots.
“But after the family vacation over the summer, the decision was made for him to return home and for everyone to try to move on from his betrayals. That’s where they are now. The truth is that they want to stay together but they don’t know if they can do it. ‘
The friend adds that the Walkers are considering several options. ‘Annie wants security, so she has been exploring options for financial security. Obviously trust is gone in the marriage.
‘It could be that you get a lump sum divorce settlement, or it could be that you get some other type of formal agreement where you receive a certain amount of money each month from Kyle.
‘Annie wants that to be put into practice. All of this is being resolved and analyzed and there is still no agreement. It doesn’t mean that you are separating, since finances are separate from what is happening in the relationship.
‘It could be that they decide that the easiest option is to get divorced, which would resolve everything but they could still stay together. They have a lot of feelings for each other and neither wants the other party to leave or start over with a new partner.
The painful marital situation Kyle Walker finds himself in, of course, has been made much more complicated by the behavior of Lauryn Goodman, who has seemingly milked every unbearable abandonment out of the saga.
Sources close to the Walkers say their efforts to reconcile have become “much more difficult because of Lauryn.” She has been relentless.’
As I previously revealed, the Walkers had their legal teams monitor Lauryn’s activity, with a view to potentially launching a harassment lawsuit against her in due course.
Some of Lauryn’s closest friends believe that her ultimate goal is to get back together with the Manchester City and England defender. This week it was said that she “will want to throw a party” to celebrate him being single.
You may want to save your pennant for now.