It was a defiant show of unity: Geri Horner was standing by her man despite her anguish over flirtatious messages he had allegedly sent to a female colleague.
Dressed in her trademark white – this time a vintage Gucci dress – the ex-Spice Girl held husband Christian Horner’s hand tight at the launch of the Formula 1 season in Bahrain in March last year.
The beleaguered couple also kissed passionately in Christian’s Team Red Bull paddock before the grand prix, in an apparent attempt to show the world their marriage was still solid.
It had been under strain since he was accused of ‘inappropriate behaviour’ by a female colleague at the start of February 2024.
Just in case there was any doubt, Geri wore a red string bracelet on her left wrist – an accessory that signifies commitment according to the Jewish spiritual teachings of Kabbalah, which Geri is said to follow.
Geri was clearly desperately hoping that this display of unity would help silence the gossips. And over time, the scandal blew itself out.
Indeed, at the weekend she was seen looking happy and relaxed at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, which she attended with her eight-year-old son, Monty, whom she shares with Christian, as well as Bluebell, 19, her daughter from a previous relationship with a Hollywood screenwriter.
Again, head-to-toe in white, she made it clear she was the first lady of F1 – a role she is said to have ‘very much enjoyed’.
Geri Horner, the ‘First Lady of F1’, will be devastated to lose her status after Christian Horner’s dismissal, writes KATIE HIND
So imagine her horror just two days later when the former Ginger Spice learned that Christian was to be axed by Red Bull and the position which she treasured so much had been denied her at the stroke of a pen.
A statement issued by the team yesterday morning confirmed rumours that had been swirling around the F1 world for weeks: ‘Red Bull has released Christian Horner from his operational duties with effect from today… and has appointed Laurent Mekies as CEO of Red Bull Racing.’
Such has been the abruptness of Horner’s dismissal after 20 years at the helm that he reportedly ‘broke down’ while addressing staff at Red Bull’s Milton Keynes HQ. Sky Sports F1 reported that the leaving speech ‘was hugely emotional, and Christian himself was very emotional and broke down on occasion’.
Horner’s dramatic sacking comes amid claims the F1 chief’s ‘ongoing personal issues’ had become ‘a burden to the team’.
Red Bull’s failure to give a reason for his departure immediately prompted speculation that his sex-text scandal had finally caught up with him.
Screenshots of WhatsApp messages allegedly exchanged between Christian and a Red Bull employee were leaked anonymously on March 1 last year, the day after a three-week investigation, carried out externally, cleared the 51-year-old of all allegations.
F1 sources suggest that there wasn’t one particular reason for Christian’s departure and it was, in fact, a myriad of factors – including poor team performances on the track – that made his position untenable.
But many will insist it was that alleged indiscretion of 17 months ago that finally come back to bite him.
And Red Bull’s decision to part with Horner – his lawyers were instructed to write to media outlets yesterday to claim he wasn’t sacked – will leave Geri ‘absolutely humiliated’, according to friends. After all, while it was an unpleasant reminder of that unedifying episode, it also represented a fresh challenge to her carefully curated makeover.
Geri has worked ‘incredibly hard’ to transform herself from brash and ballsy pop star to a horse-riding, elegant ‘lady of the manor’.
‘Geri loved Christian for Christian,’ says an associate of the singer, who infamously wore a raunchy, knicker-flashing Union Jack mini-dress onstage at the 1997 Brit Awards.
‘But she also loved being the wife of ‘Mr F1’. It undeniably brought her gravitas.
‘Those who know Geri and don’t particularly like her sneer about her behind her back for this, but she had what she’d wanted since she was a young woman growing up in working-class Watford.
The couple stride into the Bahrain circuit paddock hand in hand in March last year following an investigation into Christian Horner’s ‘inappropriate behaviour’ with a female worker
‘She has the countryside homes and the successful husband and of course more money than she knew what to do with. But now it has all come to a crashing end.
‘Geri wanted all of the stories about the texts and speculation about her marriage to go away, and then she had this blissful year or so where the world moved on and she could go back to enjoying her new life.
‘But now his sacking has put it all back at the forefront and she will find it tough.’
Yesterday, I was inundated with calls from people who worked with Geri in the past keen to speculate over what all this means for her marriage.
The couple’s relationship didn’t get off to the most classy of starts back in 2014 when Christian left his wife Beverley Allen for her just weeks after Beverley had given birth to their daughter Olivia.
Indeed, there were two conspicuous absentees from the couple’s glamorous wedding in May 2015, which was followed by a lavish reception at Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire: Christian’s parents, clearly appalled by his treatment of Beverley, chose not to attend. But Geri and Christian soon became an A-list power couple. Onlookers at Victoria Beckham’s 50th birthday party last April at Mayfair haunt Oswald’s say that Christian ‘appeared very pleased to be there’.
He was also beyond excited when Geri was joined by stars including A-list pals Emma ‘Baby Spice’ Bunton, Ronnie Wood, Rod Stewart and Gary Barlow in singing him Happy Birthday when he turned 50 in December 2023.
Meanwhile, there were rumours that Geri’s efforts at reinvention even extended to styling herself ‘Geraldine’ in a bid to come across as more refined, as she and her husband divide their time between two sprawling country estates, one in Oxfordshire and another in Hertfordshire. This suggestion was vigorously denied.
The Oxfordshire estate has a grade II-listed mansion complete with an indoor swimming pool, as well as a working farm, which includes a duck pond, stables, miniature donkeys and goats.
It all adds up to quite a transition for Geri, who was brought up in a council house by her Spanish mother Ana Maria Hidalgo.
Meanwhile, my sources say that Christian has not always relished some elements of Geri’s Spice Girls past – such as when her former bandmate Melanie Brown (Scary Spice) revealed on Piers Morgan’s Life Stories programme in 2018 that the two women had had a lesbian fling.
‘Christian wasn’t exactly over the moon when Mel did that,’ says a former associate.
Geri Horner performs as Ginger Spice on stage during a Spice Girls performance
Another former colleague of the star says: ‘But what this [Christian’s dismissal] has done is resurrect all of the back story to her and Christian which doesn’t help Geri’s brand. She will hate it so much.’
Despite the WhatsApp messages becoming a global story, Christian survived accusations of coercive behaviour towards his ex-colleague.
It is understood he was interviewed for almost nine hours by an independent barrister during the subsequent investigation into the affair but was cleared of any wrongdoing.
The multimillionaire racing boss was exonerated for a second time after the original finding was upheld following an appeal.
Yesterday, the father of the woman in question said he believed Christian’s sacking was a fitting end to a sorry saga which has blighted his daughter’s life.
He told MailOnline: ‘I’ve read the news and the right thing has happened… People know what took place.’
He also indicated that his daughter is no longer working at Red Bull, but refused to be drawn on whether she is still involved in F1.
‘You’ll have to find out for yourself,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to go into details.’
The Red Bull Racing team has never really recovered from the controversy, which led to months of internal disputes and disappointing race results, according to insiders.
The most divisive result of the sexting scandal was a major falling out between Christian and Red Bull’s world champion driver Max Verstappen.
In the wake of the sexting allegations, the Dutch-Belgian driver’s father Jos warned that the team was ‘in danger of being torn apart’ if Horner stayed in his role. Since then, the pair have reportedly been at loggerheads, with the latest clash allegedly at Silverstone at the weekend where Verstappen finished in fifth place.
Friends of Christian tell me that he will be ‘devastated’ at his Red Bull career coming to such a sudden conclusion and with it, in all likelihood, any involvement in F1.
Christian Horner embraces Prince Harry at the US Grand Prix in Austin, Texas, in 2023
They say that ‘it is all he has ever done, all he has ever worked towards’ and his life is now ‘destroyed’. One adds: ‘You wonder what Christian will do: this has been his vocation.’ He can take some solace, of course, from the fact that he and Geri have amassed a combined fortune of at least £50 million.
But his dramatic split with Red Bull is not the only shock to have thrown his life into turmoil recently.
Ten days ago, his former wife Beverley, the mother of his 11-year-old daughter Olivia, passed away at her Cotswolds home following a two-year battle with eye cancer.
Friends of Beverley told me yesterday that, while her prognosis had long been gloomy, they are devastated at her passing.
As one associate of the couple said: ‘When something like this happens, it puts everything into perspective.’
Meanwhile, I hear that Geri has recently put her publicist Pippa Beng on ‘hiatus’ while she works on her career as a children’s book author. There were rumours she was keen to start a reality television show, too, while at the same time accused of being the ‘blocker’ to a Spice Girls reunion tour.
Friends say she will probably want to retreat from public view for some time as she waits for the fuss over her husband’s Red Bull exit to die down.
The question is: as their marriage once again comes under scrutiny, will she be wearing her red string commitment bracelet – or not?
