When Kyle Walker came face to face last July with his former mistress Lauryn Goodman, he left her in no doubt that he was absolutely furious with her.
It was almost a year on from their previous meeting, and they were both at the Central Family Court in London to argue over child maintenance payments for their two young children Kairo and Kinara.
They bumped into one another while waiting for the hearing to begin, and to say the atmosphere was frosty is putting it mildly. Fortunately, when actually in court, they sat well apart.
Kyle’s animus was understandable. Even though he had already paid his ex a generous sum, as we shall see, she had continued to be a very public thorn in his side since the beginning of 2024.
In the weeks running up to their day in court, Kyle had been playing for England in the Euros – playing very well in some games.
But just two days after he landed back home from Germany, where England had lost in the final to Spain, the beginning of the court case brought him back to earth with a bump.
Lauryn, centre, arrives at the side entrance to the Central Family Court for the child maintenance case with Kyle in July
Kyle Walker does the coffee run during a break from courtroom drama with ex Lauryn
In court, the judge accused Lauryn of treating Kyle as an ‘open-ended cheque book’ with her demands for, among other things, a £32,000 Astro Turf pitch for her daughter and £500 a month for hot-tub maintenance.
It was clear that Kyle had been infuriated by her shopping list.
‘When they came face to face, Kyle was absolutely raging at Lauryn,’ said a friend who was there. ‘He has always been generous financially with the children but she wanted more and more and Kyle was bloody cross about it.
‘He was living every man’s nightmare.’
The one saving grace for Kyle, though, was that his on-pitch form for England and Manchester City – where he earns £190,000-a-week – had remained strong throughout this period and for some time afterwards.
But that changed noticeably at the weekend when he was involved in an altercation with Manchester United striker Rasmus Hojlund during the first half of the traditionally full-blooded Manchester derby.
Both players were booked after Kyle’s rival reacted angrily to being fouled by him. But Kyle himself then theatrically fell to the floor as Hojlund faced up to him.
Football pundits were appalled by his behaviour, including Roy Keane who witheringly said: ‘I’m embarrassed for him.’
Kyle and wife ex-Annie Kilner. He will have to hand over a reported £15million so that she is financially secure
Meanwhile, there has been increasing criticism of his performance this season for Manchester City, with fans saying pointedly he is not the player he once was.
Given what he has been through over the past few years, it is perhaps unsurprising that his game is beginning to suffer. For almost 12 months, there have been non-stop headlines and thousands of column inches about his off-pitch misdemeanours.
The sorry sequence of events that culminated in one of football’s biggest ever WAG-related scandals began in 2019 when, while on a break from his wife Annie, he got Lauryn pregnant with Kairo.
Shortly afterwards, he and Annie got back together and tied the knot.
But in the winter of 2022 Lauryn fell pregnant with Kyle’s baby once again and the following summer, his only daughter was born.
What happened subsequently helps explain why Kyle is so angry with his ex-mistress, according to sources.
For on December 27 last year – just two days after Kyle enjoyed a happy family Christmas with his wife and their children – Lauryn sent Annie a breezy bombshell of a message, writing: ‘Hey it’s Lauryn I just wanted to quickly tell you that Kyle is the father of our daughter.’
Annie threw Kyle out. He then used a newspaper interview to apologise publicly for his ‘stupid choices’ and ‘mistakes’ – which, in turn, infuriated Lauryn, who hit back saying that his words were ‘unimaginably cruel’ to her children.
Kyle was involved in an altercation with Manchester United striker Rasmus Hojlund during the first half of the Manchester derby at the weekend
That prompted a very public and extraordinary row, which saw Kyle and Annie Walker hire a publicity consultant to brief the media following the fall out.
A year on from Lauryn’s festive message to Annie, however, matters have barely improved for Kyle who misses his two children with Lauryn ‘dreadfully’ and feels he cannot see them because of the fall-out with their mother, say friends.
Meanwhile Lauryn won’t go away, and seems to be making the most of her moment in the sun.
She has been flitting between two different agents, one of whom is former News Of The World executive Ian Edmondson and the other former glamour model Nicola McLean.
Lauryn is also currently orchestrating a campaign about child maintenance payments with the Labour Party – which is somewhat ironic given that, courtesy of Kyle, she has a £2.4 million house in Sussex and a Mercedes 4×4.
‘Kyle would love to see Kairo and Kinara but with Lauryn everything is so difficult,’ said a source close to the fall-out. ‘It’s sad for him, they are his children and that takes its toll.
‘He wishes that there was a more grown up way of dealing with this difficult domestic situation but he feels that Lauryn simply wants to be famous, and that she is determined to stay in the limelight. She is obsessed with Kyle and his life. Who knows if she will ever change.
‘Imagine Lauryn handing her kids over to Kyle at the motorway services, would the paparazzi turn up to catch the moment?
Lauryn posted this image on Instagram of Kyle’s children watching him play
‘Then you’d wonder; if the kids were to go to Kyle, would the details of the visit be made public?’
For her part it is understood that Lauryn has said that Kyle doesn’t want to see the kids.
Either way it is difficult to have sympathy for Kyle.
‘This is all his own mess,’ says a source close to the defender. ‘It’s easy to blame the women but he should have kept his pants on – then he wouldn’t be in this mess.’
Meanwhile, Lauryn is not the only woman who’s preying on Kyle’s mind. In October his wife Annie stunned him when she served him divorce papers after instructing lawyers to begin proceedings to formally end four years of marriage after a relationship that began when they were teenagers in their home city of Sheffield.
While the couple’s publicist insist that ‘all is not as it seems’ and that Annie is in fact going for a ‘non split divorce’ – meaning Kyle will not have to move out of the family house but will have to hand over a reported £15 million so that she is financially secure.
‘The whole thing is a mess,’ said one friend. ‘Annie has struggled to deal with it all, so home is hardly a nice place to be for Kyle.’
Which brings us back to his football performances.
‘When you have big football games to play you need security,’ the friend says, ‘the whole divorce thing being dangled around is the last thing you need.’
On top of all this is the fact that, at the age of 34, Kyle is nearing the end of his playing career and he is fully aware that his earning potential is not what it once was. Nor can he escape the fact that his past successes – as well as his stupidity and sexual incontinence – have made him a cash target for women.
Some months ago, a glamour-model type contacted me in an attempt to sell her story for a five-figure sum. She claimed she and Kyle knew one another intimately, after they met at a party. She also claimed that she and Annie had been in touch over her friendship with Kyle.
He is aware of the woman’s claims, which begs the question of whether he is also fearful that there are other details of his life out there that could be made public.
‘Kyle has always liked a night out and he has made himself very vulnerable,’ said a friend.
His Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola has been staunchly loyal despite Kyle’s extracurricular activities – though you wonder for how much longer.
There has been talk of him moving to Saudi but little evidence to back up that happening.
One thing is for sure, however. There really is only one person responsible for his downfall.
‘He was warned that all of this outside noise would affect his football, and his bank balance,’ declared a former associate. ‘But he carried on regardless. And only he can be blamed for that.’