KATIE HIND: Why Annie Kilner filing for divorce from Kyle Walker heralds an ugly new chapter… with Lauryn Goodman believing she ‘is in with a chance’

It was the WAG war that put an end to that.

And now, ten months after Annie Kilner learned her husband Kyle Walker had fathered a second child with Lauryn Goodman, it appears their marriage is over.

In a move that is said to have stunned the England and Manchester City defender, Ms Kilner served him with divorce papers after ordering lawyers to start proceedings to formally end their relationship, which started when they were teenagers.

A source close to the couple told the Mail: ‘The end of the road appears to have now arrived.’

Lauryn Goodman with her son Kairo in Frankfurt, on the morning of England’s European Championship match against Denmark

It is believed that 31-year-old Mrs Kilner – who has four children with Walker – wants to fight for half his fortune, said to be £27million.

It is claimed Walker, 34, and Ms Kilner are no longer speaking to each other and he is also consulting lawyers.

According to The Sun, he was said to have been ‘stunned’ when he received the papers.

A source told them: ‘This is as much of Annie flexing her muscles as anything else. She wants Kyle to know she’s not messing around. But if this is a bluff, it could backfire.”

The sad sequence of events, which has led to one of football’s biggest ever scandals, began in 2019 when Walker, during a break from Ms Kilner, got Ms Goodman pregnant with her son Kairo.

He and Ms Kilner reunited shortly afterwards and secretly married in 2021.

But in the winter of 2022, after another brief affair, Mrs Goodman was pregnant again with Walker’s baby and the following summer a girl named Kinara – Kyle’s only daughter – was born.

On December 27 last year, Ms Goodman messaged Ms Kilner – who was pregnant with their fourth son at the time – with a light-hearted bombshell, writing: “Hey, it’s Lauryn. I just wanted to quickly tell you that Kyle is the father of our daughter.”

Mrs Kilner, who shares four sons with Walker – Roman, 11, Riaan, seven, Reign, five, and Rezon, six months – threw him out two weeks later.

Annie Kilner has filed for divorce following Kyle Walker’s highly publicized affair with Lauryn Goodman

Walker then, apparently at Mrs Kilner’s insistence, told his side of the story in a newspaper interview, apologizing profusely to his high school sweetheart who was pregnant with their fourth child at the time.

He described his relationship with Ms Goodman as “stupid choices” and “mistakes”.

Mrs Goodman, in turn, was furious and hit back, saying his words were ‘unbelievably cruel’ to her children.

That led to a very public and extraordinary feud, with the Walkers hiring a PR to brief the media after the fallout.

Meanwhile, friends of Sussex-based Lauryn, 33, 250 miles away from the couple’s £4million Cheshire mansion, say she is ‘planning a party’ at the news that Walker is now all set to be a single to become a man.

They say she has refused to let him go after having two affairs with him – resulting in her four-year-old son Kairo and daughter Kinara, one. “Lauryn will want to throw a party at this news,” says one.

‘She is literally obsessed with him and has always harbored the hope that they will end up together. She is one step closer,” says a friend.

‘She’s been waiting patiently to see if they would stay together and now that things have really gotten bad between them, she will of course feel like she has a chance. The feeling people around her have is that she would like to be Mrs. Walker.”

Lauryn is certainly doing her best. She has hired Nicola McLean, the wife of former Birmingham City and Queens Park Rangers footballer Tom Williams, as her agent.

Nicola herself is no stranger to fame, having starred in ITV’s I’m A Celebrity in 2008.

Sources say she hopes Lauryn lands a TV role on Celebrity Big Brother. “Lauryn wants to be famous, and it’s that simple,” says a friend.

‘She is determined to stay in the spotlight and do what is right for her children. It’s unlikely that Annie will hear from her again anytime soon.”