It’s every young child’s dream to jet off to Disneyworld for the holiday of a lifetime.
For Kyle Walker and wife Annie Kilner’s brood, their trip to the theme park in Orlando, Florida was even more joyous – because after a torrid 18 months Mummy and Daddy have finally mended their marital problems.
It was in December 2023 that their marriage imploded, after influencer Lauryn Goodman sent an explosive text message to a then pregnant Annie, informing her that England and former Manchester City defender Kyle was the father of not just Lauryn’s son Kairo, but also her newborn baby daughter.
In October 2024, Annie duly served Kyle, her childhood sweetheart and husband of three years, with divorce papers after instructing lawyers to begin proceedings to formally end their relationship.
But the Mail can today reveal that the pair are officially back together, with any plans to divorce now firmly in the past.
And last week, they celebrated with a five-star holiday to the US, where they were seen frolicking in the sea together in a series of carefree photographs.
Annie, 32, showed off her stunning figure in a red bikini as she sipped an iced drink. Onlookers revealed that the family seemed ‘extremely happy’ on the trip which came just as Kyle, 34, returned from Italy – where he was on loan to AC Milan.
I’m told they spent an ‘idyllic’ week together with their four sons: Roman, Riaan, Reign and one-year-old Rezon, who Annie was pregnant with when she received Lauryn’s toxic message.
The six of them splashed in the pool, met Mickey Mouse at the Disney resort and a theme park. It was wonderful for Kyle and Annie to see smiles on their boys’ faces after all they have had to endure, say friends.
And today, the full story of how the couple mended their marriage – something even their nearest and dearest never imagined could happen – can be revealed.
Friends of the couple have told the Mail that the key to it all was Annie and Kyle finally shaking off Lauryn from their lives. For the past year, she has been a thorn in their side, making regular swipes towards them online and in the Press – which, I’m told, upset Annie deeply.
Now the saga has died down, Kyle and Annie have found the ‘space’ to deal with their problems in private.
‘They are back together,’ said a friend. ‘This wasn’t a “make-or-break” holiday. It was a proper family trip where they were back together as man and wife. They flew off – leaving the dogs at home to look after the house – and they were determined to have a great time.
‘Annie was obviously devastated and very, very angry about what Kyle did, so she threw him out for six months. After he moved back in they tried and tried. It was a hard process.
‘Deep down, they both knew that they wanted to be together – but there were so many distractions. They believe that Lauryn stirred things up, even suggesting she was moving to Milan to be near Kyle at one stage, and they found it really difficult to stomach that a lot of the time.
‘They couldn’t understand why she had to keep having a go at them in interviews or on social media. Now it has finally quietened down and the pressure has subsided. Lauryn has left them alone – touch wood.
What’s more the insider said, Kyle is now facing up to his actions.
‘There is no getting away from Kyle’s behaviour being wrong, he knows that and they are all trying to move on.
‘The difficulty was that at every turn someone constantly popped up in their face, whether it was in the Press or through their lawyers.’
That ‘someone’ was of course Lauryn.
The sorry saga, began in 2019 when Kyle, while ‘on a break’ from Annie, got Lauryn pregnant with her son, Kairo.
He and Annie got back together shortly afterwards and married in secret in 2022.
But in the winter of that year, after another brief fling with Kyle, Lauryn was once again pregnant with Kyle’s baby and the following summer, a girl called Kinara – Kyle’s only daughter – was born.
On December 27, 2024, she sent Annie the bombshell text: ‘Hey it’s Lauryn I just wanted to quickly tell you that Kyle is the father of our daughter.’
An understandably apoplectic Annie threw Kyle out of the family home two weeks later.
At Annie’s behest, Kyle then told his side of the story in a newspaper interview, profusely apologising to his childhood sweetheart. He described his relationship with Lauryn as involving ‘stupid choices’ and ‘mistakes’.
In turn, Lauryn hit back claim that his words were ‘unimaginably cruel’ towards her children.
There followed a very public row – and an even more extraordinary court case between Kyle and Lauryn at the Central Family Court in London over child maintenance payments for their two young children
In court, the judge accused Lauryn of treating Kyle – who earned £9million a year in his peak – as an ‘open-ended cheque book’. During the showdown it was revealed that Lauryn, who courtesy of Kyle had a £2.4million house in Sussex and a Mercedes 4×4, had requested tens of thousands of pounds more for cars, furnishing, air conditioning and property maintenance, as well as nursery fees – also demanded £31,200 from Kyle to install an astroturf pitch in her garden, arguing that her two-year-old daughter Kinara had demonstrated potential to become a professional footballer, as well as £500 a month for hot-tub maintenance.
Judge Edward Hess dismissed many of Lauryn’s demands, concluding that she was ‘not reliable’ while claiming Kyle ‘acted with dignity and generosity’ and described him as ‘sensible, honest and reliable’. For obvious reasons, the Walkers successfully fought to make the court case public.
Kyle and Annie don’t yet know what their future together will bring, but Kyle is reportedly looking at offers from football teams in the UK and also Europe.
Wherever they end up, one thing’s for sure: Lauryn won’t be welcome.
‘Kyle and Annie would love a new start,’ said a friend. ‘They have no idea where Kyle’s football career will take them but it’s exciting. And whatever happens, they will be doing it as a couple.’
