When it comes to the lives of the rich and famous, there seems to be no limit to the amount of crazy behavior that money can buy. The latest? The ‘no-split divorce’.
Yesterday, the Daily Mail reported that the wife of England footballer Kyle Walker has filed for divorce. This is neither unexpected nor unreasonable considering he fathered two children with “influencer” Lauryn Goodman.
Why any man would want to trade his rather soignee wife for this filthy rival is beyond me.
Especially as the latter’s recent financial demands (which include a hydro pool, a gardener at £28 an hour, a new car worth £70,000 every three years and air conditioning costing around £33,000) mark her out, in my opinion, as a shameless gold digger . It’s like trading a Bentley for a worn-out Ford Cortina.
It seems Walker, who has four children with his high school sweetheart wife Annie, is desperately trying to get her to take him back and is willing to do whatever it takes.
Kyle Walker and his wife Annie’s ‘no-split divorce’ means the couple will formally end their marriage but continue to live together as husband and wife while co-parenting their children
One option is this new and contradictory-sounding idea of a “non-division divorce.” Essentially, this means that the couple would formally end their marriage, with Kyle giving much of his estimated £27 million fortune to Annie, but they would continue to live together as husband and wife while co-parenting their children.
The logic is that Annie would have the financial independence to walk away at any time – and Kyle will move in with the woman he insists he doesn’t want to give up. In the meantime, their children remain in their parental home with minimal disruption, with both parents under the same roof.
It’s an intriguing concept that probably only works for a multi-millionaire footballer with a mansion in Cheshire and a long-suffering wife who loves him despite him being a total bastard.
Such an arrangement may not be very practical on a two-storey terrace in Bolton. But as strange as it may seem, it’s not the first time I’ve come across this kind of setup.
A friend said mutual acquaintances had broken up, but instead of selling the family home and setting up separate properties, they operated a kind of timeshare for parents. The children stay on site while their parents come and go and spend time together as a family. They are free to find other partners, but the family unit remains intact.
We’ve seen unusual solutions to thorny relationship problems before. There was, of course, the “conscious uncoupling” of Gwyneth Paltrow and Coldplay’s Chris Thingummy, described by its inventor, the therapist Katherine Woodward Thomas, as “a gentle and compassionate way to overcome grief after divorce and use it to transform and enrich your entire life’. In other words, instead of throwing things at each other, sit down together, have some adult conversations—and agree not to tear pieces apart.
However, the idea of a ‘no-split divorce’ is a little trickier. I know this because I tried it myself for a while, with my ex, Michael Gove, with whom I have a very good relationship. Still, living under the same roof when you weren’t a couple was very challenging – and quite depressing too.
I think he thought less of that. But perhaps this was because the arrangement was more beneficial to him, as I still made sure the house didn’t run out of toilet paper and did the weekly shopping. (One of our kids’ main complaints after we finally moved into separate houses was that all they could find in his refrigerator was wine, moldy cheese, and jars of Gentleman’s Relish, aka the Garrick Club diet.)
The other problem was that our house wasn’t big enough, and neither was our storage space. Sharing a bathroom with a teenage daughter was a challenge I didn’t expect.
But as progressive as such approaches may seem, they are not new. Aristocrats and royals have been doing this kind of thing for centuries. Generations of estranged toffs have lived under one roof, neither wishing to formally part as it would reduce the family’s wealth. Divorce is out of the question.
That’s why toffs are generally a) so arrogant when it comes to morality (you need to protect your legacy, but this shouldn’t get in the way of having a good time) and b) so upbeat and good at being polite to each other, even in the midst of mutual dislike.
Toffs specialize in the art of icy politeness, for the simple reason that without it, sitting across from each other and shooting daggers across the polished mahogany in the ancestral pile becomes too tiring.
Emotions are, as Downton’s Violet Crawley might have said, for the common people. It will be interesting to see if Kyle and Annie have the necessary composure to make it work.
A young female footballer, who risks a ban for asking an adult transgender opponent ‘Are you a man?’ asks, is defended because she has autism. Why? Neurodivergent or not, her question was a legitimate one to ask anyone who presented as male and participated in women’s sports.
My fashion buzz
Marks & Spencer and designer Bella Freud have released a new clothing collection
When I tried to get my hands on something from the new Bella Freud collection at Marks & Spencer, I found myself in the human, middle-class equivalent of a plague of locusts. Still, I managed to get a fluorescent yellow sweater and a striped wool scarf that reached my ankles. I think I look terribly chic. My kids say I look like a giant bumblebee.
When a 41-year-old childminder is given a prison sentence of two years and seven months for posting a disgusting and inflammatory message online shortly after three children were murdered in Southport, can someone please explain why three women (Heba Alhayek, Pauline Ankunda and Noimutu Olayinka Taiwo) convicted earlier this year of a terrorist offense for brandishing photos of paragliders in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks?
You are beautiful, James!
James Blunt said that if the 20th anniversary edition of his debut album reached No. 1, he would change his name to ‘Blunty McBluntface’. Pictured on Good Morning Britain on Wednesday
Okay, I’ll say it: I love James Blunt. He is a brilliant songwriter, funny and self-deprecating – a quality that is sadly lacking in the music world. His final bleep was that if the 20th anniversary edition of his debut album reached No. 1, he would change his name to ‘Blunty McBluntface’. It’s at number 7. Come on, Blunt fans: we can do this.
- Under the terms of Labour’s planned VAT levy on state schools, Eton College will receive a £4.8 million rebate from the Treasury for VAT paid on capital expenditure in the past. Proof, if any, that this government is both fat and hateful.
- Last week, Sir Keir Starmer again referred to Rishi Sunak as ‘the Prime Minister’. Was this a slip of the tongue or a case of wishful thinking? As today’s poll shows, Starmer’s approval rating is at a record low, down two points to minus 31 percent. He must be longing for the days when someone else was blamed for the mess…
- There is something chilling about that footage of the Israeli drone that chased the architect of the October 7 massacre into a bombed building before he was killed. Yes, he was a very bad man, but the video looks like a dystopian science fiction movie. It was unwise to release it.