Footballer Kyle Walker has moved back into the marital home and is ‘working’ on his marriage to childhood sweetheart Annie Kilner.
Friends reveal that the England right back, 34, has been living at home in Prestbury, Cheshire for the past three weeks.
He was booted out by his wife, 32, in January after influencer Lauryn Goodman rang her just after Christmas to tell her that Kyle was the father of her second child, Kinara, as well as the older boy Kairo. Annie, pregnant at the time, was hugely distressed.
Walker was present for the birth of Rezon, their fourth son, but they spent the summer living apart, with Kyle in an apartment in Manchester.
Former mistress Lauryn Goodman, who is currently appearing on Celebs Go Dating, has capitalised on the situation with a number of media appearances, including bringing their son Kairo to watch his father in the Euros over the summer.
Footballer Kyle Walker has moved back into the marital home and is ‘working’ on his marriage to childhood sweetheart Annie Kilner
He was booted out by his wife, 32, in January after influencer Lauryn Goodman rang her just after Christmas to tell her that Kyle was the father of her second child
However, although Kyle and Annie both suspect that Goodman’s ultimate aim is to finish their marriage, there are signs that they are getting back on track out of the public eye.
A friend said: ‘They both really want to make it work. Their family is the centre of both of their lives.
‘They are not sure at this point if they can work it out but they want to give it the best chance of working. The first step in that is him moving back into the house.
‘They don’t want the kids to come from a broken home and they have been together since they were 16 years old, so they are each others worlds. Annie is very protective of the boys and doesn’t want to get a divorce. Kyle wants to be home with Annie and the children.
‘They are not back together in the sense that all is forgiven and forgotten but they are physically living in the same place and trying to work out a path through it all.’
The source adds: ‘Before this he was going to the house every night to be there for bedtime with the kids so this is not radically different in some ways but it does feel like a significant step. It would be a push though to say that he and Annie have worked out their issues, as there is still much to be done.’
The saga began in 2020 when Goodman had her first child, Kairo, with the Man City star and publicly named him as the father. He was kicked out of the marital home for the first time.
A financial application for the son ‘painfully and expensively’ went through the family courts over two years. Walker was ordered to buy Goodman a £1.85million home, though within a 60 mile radius of a Sussex town to prevent her being near his family, and pay £8,000 per month child support.
Friends reveal that the England right back, 34, has been living at home in Prestbury, Cheshire for the past three weeks
A friend said: ‘They both really want to make it work. Their family is the centre of both of their lives’
The footballer also paid over £600,000 picking up both sides legal costs, cleared £40,000 of the influencer’s debts and put over £100,000 in total towards a nanny, furniture and car.
Walker cut contact with his ex-mistress and moved back in with Ms Kilner, with whom he has Roman, 11, Riaan, seven, and Reign, five, and Rezon.
But the influencer saw Walker at his solicitor’s office and contact between the two was resumed in October 2022 after Walker travelled to London. Their second child was born in August 2023.
This summer a court heard that the situation was a ‘source of disappointment, anguish and anger’ for Goodman, who threatened to move near his family’s Cheshire pile – in breach of the order – and made enquiries with nearby estate agents.
In January it emerged that Walker who is married with four children, had fathered a daughter with Goodman four years after they had a son together.
In the days leading up to Christmas last year Goodman made a series of social media posts, including a picture of the daughter on Instagram with the caption: ‘I’m a lion’.
Then, knowing Ms Kilner – pregnant with her fourth child – was home alone while her husband was playing football on December 27, messaged revealing the secret.
‘Hey it’s Lauryn I just wanted to quickly tell you that Kyle is the father of our daughter,’ she wrote.
Former mistress Lauryn Goodman, who is currently appearing on Celebs Go Dating , has capitalised on the situation with a number of media appearances
Although Kyle and Annie both suspect that Goodman’s ultimate aim is to finish their marriage, there are signs that they are getting back on track out of the public eye.
Kilner booted him out of their £3.5million marital mansion in Cheshire and he rented a £20,000-per-month property nearby with the marriage on the rocks.
Court documents made public in July this year revealed that within 48 hours of giving birth to her second child with Walker, Kinara, Goodman made a financial remedies application asking for £177,000 in maintenance support.
On top the influencer and reality TV star wanted a £70,000 Mercedes and a car worth nearly half that for her nanny – all to be paid by the footballer.
This part of a lavish package, all for the children, that also included hot tub maintenance, £20,000 on furniture and a ‘bespoke glass and wood’ baby gate.
In a court showdown Judge Edward Hess tore through the demands of Goodman, who has a conviction for benefit fraud, to side with the footballer on nearly every contention.
In a searing judgement, he agreed she was ‘spending money as if it was going out of fashion’ and treating Walker ‘as an open-ended cheque book’.
Walker was described as ‘grounded and reasonable’ by Judge Hess, who took issue with Goodman’s lavish spending habits which included demanding £31,000 for an astro turf lawn, a 70,000 Mercedes and another £30,000 car for her nanny – who couldn’t even drive, monthly fees of £500 and £1,440 for a gardener and cleaner, plus a further £500 for the upkeep of her hot tub in her £2.4m West Sussex mansion Kyle had paid for.
That was on top of the demands of maintenance payments totalling £350,000 a year.
Walker cut contact with his ex-mistress and moved back in with Ms Kilner, with whom he has Roman, 11, Riaan, seven, and Reign, five, and Rezon
Goodman fought to keep details of the case under wraps, with her lawyers arguing their children deserved privacy.
But Judge Hess said she has ‘actively instigated press coverage’ of her own son and daughter, as well as publicly detailing her feud with the father, so could not now plead privacy.
‘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,’ he ruled.
The court also heard that in August 2022, she also made contact with the footballer’s neighbour and asked her to covertly record Walker and Ms Kilner in the garden.
‘Wait until they argue,’ Goodman messaged, adding: ‘Ready to finish them.’
Within 48 hours of giving birth, Goodman made a financial remedies application. At the same time, she leveraged ‘substantial increases’ from their prior agreement out of court.
Knowing Walker wanted to keep the daughter secret she made demands while ‘hinting that she would go public on the paternity issue’.
It saw the England Vice Captain agree to buy her a £2.4million Sussex property and spend over £120,000 on walk-in wardrobes, blinds and curtains, sofas and garden furniture.
This, however, was seemingly not enough to buy Goodman’s silence who, the judge said, ‘plainly had no intention of keeping the matter secret’.
After that message, Walker was booted from the family home once more before Goodman revealed the paternity to the press in January.
The footballer responded with his own mea culpa interview weeks later, saying he had made ‘idiot decisions.’