- Kyle Walker, 34, moved to AC Milan on loan from Manchester City in January
- The veteran’s decision came amid considerable family drama and woeful form
- LISTEN NOW: It’s All Kicking Off! Why Bruno Fernandes is the Premier League Player of the Season
Kyle Walker spent his time onboard a Ryanair flight from Milan to Manchester watching a popular Netflix TV show about cheating.
The 34-year-old, who shocked passengers on the budget airline when he took his place at the front of the aircraft on Sunday night, was seen enjoying an episode of the aptly named Temptation Island. The program sees couples travel to a tropical island to have their fidelity tested.
The parallels to Walker’s situation are rather stark, given his move to Italy came amid family drama off the pitch, with Walker fighting for his marriage with the mother of four of his children, Annie Kilner, after also fathering two kids with his influencer ex-mistress Lauryn Goodman.
Kilner and their children have made regular trips to Italy but have remained in the UK.
The England international signed autographs for the cabin crew and was ‘quite pleasant’ according to a fellow passenger on the flight.
He also reportedly exchanged messages with his Three Lions colleague and former City team-mate Jack Grealish.
It follows reports last month that Walker upset his wife when he went partying with two Serbian models in Milan, having spent the day with his family before their flight back home.
The pair reunited at their home in Cheshire shortly after Walker’s night of partying, and the defender was in surprisingly good spirits.
Shortly after arriving at the San Siro, Walker told GQ of his delight to have a fresh start and ‘solely concentrate’ on his football, away from the antics which caused distraction while at Manchester City.
It came after Mail Sport revealed that Walker was determined to try and stop Goodman relocating to Italy ahead of his move to AC Milan by refusing to allow her to rent out her Sussex mansion.
The influencer, mother of the defender’s two children, intended to bankroll her move with the proceeds from a rental agreement, but Walker – who owns the £2.4m property – wants to reject the proposal.
Goodman, 33, hoped to use the money to rent a place in Milan in order for Walker to be close to their two children Kairo, four and 16-month-old daughter Kinara.
But the England defender, via his lawyers, told Goodman renting out her five-bedroom Sussex mansion was a no-go, saying if she did want to move out, the property would have to be sold.
A source said: ‘Kyle just laughed when he heard of Lauryn’s proposal.’
Goodman had previously expressed a desire to move to Dubai when Walker was initially linked with a transfer to the lucrative Saudi league after he told City boss Pep Guardiola of his intentions of moving abroad.
But after agreeing a deal with AC Milan, Lauryn changed tact, telling pals she would follow Kyle ‘anywhere’ in a desperate bid for him to connect with their children, and no doubt deliberately irk his wife Annie Kilner.
If Walker was hoping his private life would quickly cease to be a topic of discussion, he would have been devastated by the news revealed by the Mail on Sunday, that Goodman is planning a tell-all autobiography.
In March, sources close to Goodman said she is in the early stages of the book and has been hunting for a ghostwriter. To make matters worse for the Walker family, she is also in talks to appear in a documentary for Channel 4 about badly behaved footballers.
A friend told the MoS: ‘Lauryn has been wanting to do a book for some time. She has been talking about it and asking writers to pen it for her.
‘As we know, she does not hold back when she wants to say something she wants out there, so it is likely to cause Kyle and Annie yet another headache.
‘They have been trying to move on from all of this but with a book on its way, it will be pretty impossible. Lauryn doesn’t seem to want to live a quiet life.’
Goodman told Kilner in December 2023 that her second child, a daughter named Kinara, was Walker’s, along with her son Kairo, five. Kilner then threw Walker out of their family home in Cheshire, but three months later they began to repair their marriage.
In October last year, she served him with divorce papers but friends of the couple insist they are trying to make their relationship work.
On the pitch, Walker has made a big impression for Milan and featured in 11 matches in his first two months. The side are a long way off the Champions League qualification places but they could still get their hands on silverware in the form of the Coppa Italia.
Milan have a £4.2million option to make Walker’s loan deal permanent at the end of the season but, based on the defender’s recent comments, a return to the Etihad remains a possibility.
‘After I said my goodbyes, Pep [Guardiola] got up and spoke and said a really nice message to me, just saying thank you for everything,’ Walker said on his BBC podcast this month.
‘But listen, it’s not over. I’m just on loan here. I’ve got to take that into consideration that I can go back. Obviously, both parties need to come to an agreement come the end of the season and. The chapter’s not fully closed, we’ll see what happens.’
