Sitting in the back of a taxi on the way to watch his first England match, little Kairo Walker is vibrating with excitement. ‘Where are we going, Kairo?’ asks his mother Lauryn Goodman.
‘To see dad!’ comes the eager response from him. And not just on TV, she says, looking at me with his bright brown eyes. He will see it in real life!
It takes a heart of stone not to soften at the sight of this four-year-old boy, with cherubic blonde curls, beaming with pride at the thought of watching his father play for his country in the European Championship.
Lauryn Goodman appropriately dressed Kairo in his favorite outfit, a replica of England’s jersey with his father’s number 2 and “Dad” written above.
Kairo is the son of Kyle Walker, the England vice-captain and Manchester City star, whose off-field exploits have generated as many headlines of late as anything he has achieved with boots on.
In January, it was revealed that Kyle, 34, who is married to his childhood sweetheart Annie Kilner, with whom he has four children, had fathered another baby, a girl, with the 33-year-old influencer and reality TV personality, Lauryn.
Since then, there has been a bitter war of words between the three parties, as Kyle fights for his marriage and Lauryn fights for her children’s recognition from their father.
Kairo, of course, is oblivious to all this. And unlike the rest of the country, he wasn’t at all bothered by the 1-1 draw against Denmark on Thursday: he just wanted to see his father. It was the first time he saw him play in person.
Before that, Kairo had settled for hoping to find his father’s image on a sticker pack for his Euro sticker book. She finally did it the day before, she tells me.
“I can’t tell you how excited I was,” says Lauryn, in an exclusive interview with the Mail. “I was jumping up and down.”
And it was for that reason that Lauryn was determined to take Kairo to Frankfurt’s Deutsche Bank Stadium, where I joined them for a day of drama and high emotions.
Of course, she had dressed him appropriately in his favorite outfit, a replica of England’s shirt with his father’s number 2 and “Dad” written above it, which she must have known would attract attention. That shirt said Lauryn’s intentions very clearly. There was no way she was going to allow her son to be ostracized.
Lauryn revealed to me that her main motivation behind the trip to Frankfurt was to fulfill a promise Kyle had made to her son in 2022, when she was secretly pregnant with her second child, and he was playing in the World Cup in Qatar.
‘Kyle told him in a FaceTime call that he would make sure he was in the next tournament because (Kyle) is getting older and he knew there might not be any more opportunities.
“There was no way I wasn’t taking Kairo to the Euros,” Lauryn says. ‘There was no way I wasn’t going to keep the promise Kyle made to his son. This could have been her last chance so she wanted it to be something Kairo could remember forever.
‘We are not here to please other people. It’s about Kairo and what’s best for him and what will make him happy.
‘I will not be a scapegoat or bullied or made to feel like a villain. My children are my number one priority and always will be. Luckily I am a strong woman and a mother to them.’ For those who missed the scandal, one of the most spectacular feuds in Wag history, it began when Lauryn met Kyle in 2019, when he was on a break from Annie.
Despite his infidelity and the birth of their son Kairo, Kyle and Annie remained together in Cheshire while Lauryn raised their son hundreds of miles away in Brighton.
Kyle Walker chats with his wife Annie Kilner and family at England’s game against Denmark
Then, last December, Lauryn dropped another bombshell: that the daughter she had given birth to last summer was also Kyle’s, conceived when the two met briefly to sort out paperwork about their son.
Annie kicked Kyle out of the family home in Prestbury, Cheshire, and he moved into a nearby flat. However, after Annie gave birth to a fourth child in April, they began repairing their marriage, reportedly on the condition that Kyle cut off all contact with Lauryn and her children.
There are conflicting reports as to whether Annie has forgiven Kyle yet. Sources claim that she only went to the Euros for the sake of the children and that she certainly will not stay in Germany “playing happy families.” Instead, she travels for individual games.
Meanwhile, Lauryn is raising her children as a single mother in a £2.4million house in Hove, East Sussex, which Kyle bought for them as part of his child support commitments.
Unlike the other children in the England team, including Kyle’s children with Annie (Roman, 11, Riaan, seven, and Reign, five), who flew out on Thursday, there was no private jet for Lauryn and Kairo .
Instead, Lauryn went her own way, flying commercially, which meant Kairo had to get up early to get to the airport.
“I had been counting the days,” he says. “I was excited to get on the plane. I wouldn’t stop talking about it. I kept saying: when are we going to go to the European Championship to see dad?
‘We are not here to please other people. “It’s about Kairo and what’s best for him and what will make him happy,” Lauryn says.
I knew there would be a backlash, and indeed there was.
Lauryn’s critics, of whom there are many (although she vehemently emphasizes that she doesn’t really care), have accused her of hurting her son by throwing him in his father’s face when there seems little chance of them ever having a relationship. typical father/son.
There was also the remote, but very real, possibility of Lauryn and Annie coming face to face at the Euro Cup game.
Even though their names are inexorably linked in the headlines, the two women have rarely been so physically close. While there was an entire football field between them, and several rows of seats as they watched from opposite stands, there was a chance they had met.
And even more awkwardly, Kairo might have run into his older half-brothers, one of whom was wearing a soccer jersey identical to his own.
But Lauryn seems to see all of this as little more than an occupational hazard. “No, I wasn’t at all afraid of running into her,” he says defiantly.
“It doesn’t cross my mind, I don’t think about it at all. I couldn’t care less. I just get on with things.
“I was there for Kairo, no one else, and if anyone has a problem, it’s their problem, not mine.”
And Kairo seems to be having the time of his life. Excitedly waving her England flag as we approached the stadium, she began singing along with the fans’ chants, even punching the air as she cheered ‘England’.
“He learned the songs very quickly and loved singing them,” Lauryn says.
Lauryn’s critics, of which there are many, have accused her of hurting her son by shoving his father in the face when there seems little chance they will ever have a typical father-son relationship.
As with any young child attending their first soccer game, Kairo soaked up the atmosphere. But when we took our seats, there was only one thing he was paying attention to.
“There’s dad,” he said, pointing at him.
And there he was. For Lauryn, it was mission accomplished.
“My heart melted,” he says. ‘She Finally she was there and was able to cheer Kyle up. It’s all he’s been talking about for days.
Kairo has enough knowledge of the game to recognize that it was Kyle who assisted Harry Kane’s goal in the 18th minute, with Lauryn saying: “It was so surprising he could see that, Kairo knows a lot about football.”
At one point, he says he felt like he was going to cry while Kairo watched his father on the big screen.
He did not take his eyes off his father at all times. Even when they offered him a drink and something to eat, his response was: “I just want to watch football.”
He continued commentating throughout the game. ‘Yes daddy . . . Excellent shot, dad. . . my dad is in the right corner.’
Perhaps Lauryn’s proudest moment came when a fan saw Kairo after the game and told him, “Your dad played really well today.” “He made me happy,” she says. “It was a time when people included him.”
However, Lauryn made the decision to leave the game early, and not just because she feared a clash between fans.
After the games, the English team usually goes to see their families in the stands. Lauryn didn’t want to risk Kairo seeing her father running to the other side of the field, instead of him, and ruining her perfect day.
“We left five minutes early to prevent Kairo from getting upset and confused because his dad approached his brothers but not him,” Lauryn said. “It would have been very sad for him and he wasn’t going to take that risk.”
‘I’m numb to everything now. “We lived a happy life in our bubble and will continue to do so.”
In fact, although there is little contact between Kairo and his father, it is football that unites them.
Along with his England shirt, Kairo loves to wear a Manchester City shirt that also has Kyle’s team number 2 on the back.
‘He’s obsessed with his shirt. He uses it all the time. His coach is a Manchester United fan and always makes fun of him for his Manchester City uniform, which Kyle gave him and which he has personalized with “Dad” on the back.
While Kairo had “the best day of his life,” according to Lauryn, who also took her grandfather John to see the game, there was an undercurrent of sadness.
“I was really emotional because it’s like Kairo still didn’t understand what his father had done,” Lauryn says.
‘I know this is hurting Kyle, but he’s not man enough to do right by his other two children. This is a feature I don’t want Kairo to have. I want him to be strong, not a weak man when he grows up.
‘They are human and they are not going anywhere, they have as much right as anyone else. And I will always fight for them, like any mother would.
“It was very nice to see him idolize his father, but also very sad,” Lauryn said. “Seeing Kairo’s face light up in that stadium is something I’ll never forget,” she says. ‘And I’m sure Kairo will never forget it either.’
And you’ll surely hope that the next time your little one sees his dad, it won’t be in the pages of a sticker book.