It started with a kiss, but did it just end with a kiss?
On Saturday I watched – along with a near-hysterical female WhatsApp group – as Geri Halliwell arrived at the Formula 1 circuit in Bahrain to support her embattled husband, Christian Horner, the Red Bull team principal.
Cue an avalanche of outraged messages. ‘NoDon’t hold his hand!’
‘It looks like I’ve been crying!’
‘I love the vintage Gucci dress and the Hermes bag!’
And then, as Horner, 50, placed a hand firmly on the small of his supposedly aggrieved 51-year-old wife’s back, guiding her to the hospitality section, another WhatsApp rings: ‘Not a gentleman!’
But the last straw came when he leaned over to plant a big smackeroo (‘Ew! Gray stubble!’), and we all yelled, ‘Noooooo! Geri, punch him!
She then turned self-consciously toward the camera, with a look that said, “I’m doing what my crisis management team told me to do” or “Yes, I’m a Stepford Wife now.” Damn Girl Power!’
Christian Horner and Geri Halliwell shake hands in a public show of unity at the Bahrain Grand Prix on Saturday.
For us, the last straw came when he leaned over to plant a big smackeroo (‘Ew! Gray stubble!’), and we all yelled, ‘Noooooo! Geri, punch him!
None of us in the WhatsApp group had seen or remotely understood F1 before, but now we were glued to the screen, suddenly experts. The scene in the paddock is seductive and glamorous: a calm environment in which heads can turn, no matter what the sport’s code of conduct dictates.
Horner is, after all, an adrenaline junkie, graduating from karting as a child and moving on to Formula 3000 before realizing he didn’t have what it took to drive F1 and moving on to run his own team: “I always it was about pushing boundaries…taking risks.’ Hmm.
And this testosterone-driven environment attracts beautiful women like cats to an open can of tuna. But still – Geri is a Spice Girl! That beats the supermodel, the heiress, and the youngest subordinate, doesn’t it?
The husband of someone in our WhatsApp group chimed in saying, “Drivers need to concentrate, they act in hundredths of a second,” a typical male response. (Horner’s team won despite being distracted by Geri’s presence.)
But our loyalty was only to Geri, whose messy love life and irreverent spirit… who else would put a British flag tea towel on the Brits? – And her weight struggles over the years have mirrored our own.
We thought she had finally found her happy ending, having married Horner in 2015, what with his estimated £8million-a-year salary and all. She had finally escaped her serial singlehood: an affair with Robbie Williams, a brief relationship with Sacha Gervasi, a screenwriter with whom she has a daughter, Bluebell, 17 years old. A two-year relationship with Henry Beckwith, an heir eight years her junior. .
Christian and Geri Horner after the Red Bull team won the Bahrain Grand Prix
Christian and Geri Horner after the Red Bull team won the Bahrain Grand Prix on Saturday
When we first learned last month that her husband had been accused of ‘inappropriate behavior’ by a colleague, we all screamed ‘Nooooooo!’ Then last week he was cleared after a Red Bull investigation and we applauded him, only for that flurry of ‘flirty’ messages (supposedly sent by him and many of them supposedly much more than flirty) to leak while Geri was in a private jet. joining him in Bahrain for the first F1 race of the season. Oh my god, I bet the fasten seatbelt sign was on smartly.
On Saturday, as rumors circulated about the content of the messages, we enjoyed breaking it down, as all feminists should:
‘Posh t***, why is he wearing overalls? You must wish you were Steve McQueen.
and “What a weasel-like, smug face.”
Curiously, however, much of the media has had little sympathy for Geri. Which is out of line, since this scandal is something she really doesn’t want or deserve.
I once came across emails between my husband and his secret lover and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Opening each tiny envelope was like a bomb exploding in my gut.
The heartbreaking pain, the disbelief, the shame. The realization that everything they had built together was a mirage.
Geri, we are told, had “the crisis that ended all crises” when she read the texts. Just to perform on Saturday in front of a global audience required immense courage.
But of course, they have a seven-year-old son together. A family. It is not something that can be thrown away lightly.
The last time Geri left a family, it was with the other three Spice Girls, back in 1998.
In the documentary made about their separation, the most enduring image is that of Geri sitting on the steps of her mansion, looking scared and alone, apart from the presence of Harry, her shih tzu.
She seemed so small, so unsure of what would happen next. And now? For my part, I want to give him a big hug.
However, the way they treat Geri, a suffering woman, is incredible.
Horner left his wife for Geri when their son was six months old, his critics chide.
Um, HE was the one who was already in a relationship!
“She’s an ex,” one commenter wrote. Geri has had several number one singles! She is one of the most successful singers and songwriters we have ever produced.
Marriages fall apart, people fall out of love.
Geri’s reputation will be “stained” if she supports him, some say. But all too often, women find themselves between a rock and a hard place when it comes to their men misbehaving.
She and Horner aren’t just dating; They have a life together. It must have been a very, very difficult decision for Geri to appear supporting him at the weekend, and the scandal is still fresh. But it is always the women who receive the blow in the neck.
And it’s a shame. While her fellow Spice Girl Victoria Beckham is fashion royalty, Geri, the working-class daughter of a Spanish mother who worked as a cleaner, has become completely comfortable mixing with actual royalty.
She famously once pinched Prince Charles on the butt. Now she blends into her circles with ease and almost as an equal.
Pulling herself up by her nails, the former shop assistant at the Next branch in Watford has transformed into, in her words, a ‘posho’.
He owns racehorses at his country home in Oxfordshire. That tea towel has been replaced by Barbour jackets and Hunter wellies.
Geri is no stay-at-home trophy wife, although she has enough money of her own to never work again.
As Michelle Stephenson, a brief early member of the band known as “the sixth Spice Girl,” remembered of Geri when they were starting out: “She was the most motivated, the first to go for a run at dawn.” While the others ate pizza, Geri ate bean sprouts.
Yet despite the riches and fame, the Geri I knew was plagued by doubt.
Now, this latest debacle and possible betrayal (nothing has been proven – Christian Horner was cleared of misconduct by his bosses and he denies everything – will make her question herself).
Then he turned self-consciously toward the camera, with a look that said, “I’m doing what my crisis management team told me to do.”
Geri has a son (now seven) with Christian Horner, daughters Bluebell (left) and Olivia from a previous relationship. In the photo: The family together at the Bahrain F1 Grand Prix in 2017.
It always seems to have this effect on women.
I first met Geri at a cover shoot in Los Angeles in 2001. She was in the middle of her Ashtanga yoga super period (remember the cover photo of her doing a headstand on the beach? I don’t even know relax on holiday!).
She suffered from bulimia for many years and became addicted to exercise.
Almost a decade later, in 2010, I went to his home in Highgate, north London. It was all artificial grass and hard surfaces, although Geri had softened.
Bluebell, then almost five years old, was playing in the next room. His boyfriend at the time was the heir to the property, Henry.
Geri is a fantastic mom. Speaking of Bluebell, she told me that she wants to “instill good values in her: that she always be polite and have self-discipline.”
She seemed more comfortable with her body and with aging.
When promoting her own swimwear range for Next, she banned the brand from retouching it.
I asked her how she overcame the feeling that she will never be good enough.
“This comes with time and maturity,” he responded.
‘There is a lot more in the world to think about than my appearance. I just wanted to be free of it… Forgive my own imperfections and allow the mess.’
Geri’s father died when she was 21, just as they had repaired their relationship after her parents’ divorce.
The breakdown of that relationship, she told me, is what fueled her search for security, to be cared for.
Her older brother, Max, died suddenly at the age of 54 in 2021, meaning she clung to Horner like a life raft.
“It was shocking to realize that people can love you and then leave you,” he said. ‘(Because) my parents were divorced, I was very wary of relationships and dependent on someone, so I tried to become very independent, which is a bit lonely.
‘So I was never present or available for relationships, not even with myself. She worked constantly all the time. I’m always looking for a dad.’
She likes a man to be a man.
‘But for me the most important thing is the integrity, the loyalty and the spirit, the kindness of the person. The character of man. Completely fundamental.’
We can only hope that his faith in Horner is not misplaced.
Now I understand why she allowed her husband to plant that kiss for everyone to see.
Geri has no one left to lean on if another man disappoints her.