GERI Halliwell was seen wearing a spiritual bracelet to “ward off evil” as she stood beside scandal-hit Christian Horner.
The Spice Girl, 51, presented a united front with the under-fire F1 Red Bull boss yesterday at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
GettyGeri Halliwell wearing the spiritual red bracelet[/caption]
SplashIt is believed she wore the sacred thread to ‘ward off evil’ as she stood beside scandal-hit Horner[/caption]
GettyThe spice girl wearing her signature white dress as she showed her “bravery” and put on a show of solidarity[/caption]
GettyThe scandal-hit couple were pictured holding hands[/caption]
SplashThe troubled couple stood next to Red Bull’s key shareholder Chalerm Yoovidhya[/caption]
PAHorner and Geri pictured together after the race smiling[/caption]
PAChristian and Geri Horner kiss before the Bahrain Grand Prix[/caption]
GettyThe pair was mobbed by photographers as they walked along the paddock[/caption]
RexRedbull man Max Verstappen shaking hands with FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem after winning the Grand Prix[/caption]
Horner was all smiles after the race despite the looming scandal
She had landed in the Middle East on Thursday night, as a torrent of sexually suggestive WhatsApp messages and pictures between Horner, 50, and a female employee rocked the F1 world.
Despite the storm surrounding her marriage with scandal-hit Horner, Geri showed up at the Bahrain Grand Prix to watch her husband mastermind a dominant victory for world champion Max Verstappen.
However, the pop icon was seen bringing out her spiritual side in a bid to protect scandal-hit Horner.
Pictures showed Geri wearing a red string bracelet on her left wrist to display her commitment to the Jewish spiritual teachings of Kabbalah, a belief that she has long followed.
Wearing the sacred bracelet wards off “evil and misfortune”, it is believed.
Sources close to the pop icon suggest Geri has become increasingly spiritual over the years and has been mediating lately to help deal with the pressure her husband brought on their marriage.
One source told the Mail: “Geri is into a lot of hippy-dippy spiritual healing, she really believes in it and has been trying to use it a lot recently.
“Meditation is her big thing, she swears by it.”
The spice girl even wore her signature white dress as she showed her “bravery” and put on a show of solidarity
After the shocking sexting claims, Geri was said to have “felt like a fool” for trusting her “prince charming” husband after he played down the messages.
The singer is now facing “the biggest decision of her life” as she is deciding what the next move in her marriage with Horner will be, her friends said.
Friends of the star reportedly stated it would “break her heart” to end things with Christian as she sees him as the man she’s waited for since she was a little girl.
An insider said: “She acts on impulse a lot. She has a temper on her, that’s for sure, and doesn’t Christian know it?
It is understood Geri went “into meltdown” when she landed in Bahrain and discovered Horner’s sext leak.
But she still put up a public display of affection in a bid to support her scandal-hit husband.
Ginger Spice strode hand-in-hand with her husband to a hospitality area ahead of the race yesterday.
They shared an awkward hug before Horner leaned in to plant a cringey kiss on his wife’s cheek while putting his arm around her back.
After Red Bull’s world champ Max Verstappen stormed to victory in the season opener yesterday, Geri was clasped tightly by her husband as she flashed a forced-looking smile for the cameras.
The public displays of affection came as showbiz sources said Geri had considered the future of her nine-year marriage to Horner, father of her seven-year-old son.
One close to the singer said: “A lot of people who know her are astonished by this show of support.
“There is absolutely no doubt she is furious and has read him the riot act over what has happened.”
The string of shock sexts by Horner to a female colleague was leaked after the F1 boss was cleared last week in a Red Bull probe.
The tranche of messages and photos show details of private conversations between the F1 boss and an unknown staffer who appears to be a woman.
The series of WhatsApp messages, which also mention Horner’s wife Geri Halliwell, were sent from an anonymous email to hundreds of journalists.
Some of them seemed to show him asking the woman for pictures and in others he appears to discuss a solo sex act in a plane toilet.
Horner said he “won’t comment on anonymous speculation” after material reported to have been part of Red Bull’s recent inquiry into him was leaked.
The racing chief previously refused to comment on the leaked WhatsApp sexts, which were sent anonymously to F1 bosses and media outlets on Thursday.
How Christian Horner’s shock texts were leaked
By Ben Hunt
IT was an anonymous email sent and designed for maximum impact.
It landed in my inbox almost 24 hours to the minute since Christian Horner was cleared of any wrongdoing following Red Bull’s internal investigation.
Other names included Liberty Media chief Greg Maffei, who owns the rights to F1. The FIA president, Mohammed Ben Sulayem and F1 CEO Stefano Dominacali.
The F1 team bosses were also included for good measure. As was Max Verstappen’s father, Jos.
It was from an anonymous sender, the title was simply the date – ‘Feb Twenty Nine’.
Inside it was a Google Drive link containing 79 files claiming to be the evidence from the independent investigation.
There is no way of knowing if they were real or fake yet irrespectively it sent another shockwave through the F1 paddock before this season had even started.
Horner was sitting on the team’s pitwall during second practice in Bahrain when the email dropped.
After the session, he walked out of the team’s garage and into the hospitality unit where he remained as the nuclear fallout began.
He’d survived the outcome of the internal investigation into improper conduct following a complaint from a female colleague.
One wonders whether he will survive this time after this very public humiliation – again, irrespective if they were indeed real or fake.
Just hours earlier, McLaren’s CEO Zak Brown and Mercedes boss Toto Wolff, called on the sport’s governing body, the FIA, demanding transparency.
“I just read the statement, which was pretty basic,” said Wolff. “My personal opinion is we can’t really look behind the curtain.
“There is a lady in an organisation that has spoken to HR and said there was an issue and it was investigated and yesterday the sport has received the message that it’s all fine, we’ve looked at it.
“I believe with the aspiration as a global sport, on such critical topics, it needs more transparency and I wonder what the sport’s position is?
“We’re competitors, we’re a team and we can have our own personal opinions or not. But it’s more like a general reaction or action that we as a sport need to assess, what is right in that situation and what is wrong.
“Are we talking with the right moral approach, with the values based on the speculation that is out there? As a sport, we cannot afford to leave things vague and opaque on critical topics like this, because this is going to catch us out.”
Brown added: “It’s the responsibility ultimately of the organisers of Formula One, the owners of Formula One, to make sure that all the racing teams and the personnel and the drivers and everyone else involved in the sport are operating in a manner in which we all live by.
“I don’t think it’s the teams’ roles and responsibilities. That’s up to FIA and Formula One to ultimately decide and ask what they feel gives them the level of transparency they need to ultimately come to their conclusion and we just have to count on them that they fulfil that obligation to all of us.”
The emailed file will only increase that pressure in the form of scrutiny on Horner – who has always denied the accusations.
It does also put Red Bull in a tricky position.
Should the emailed file be legitimate and have made up elements from the initial report, which had been thoroughly examined and presented by the independent KC, then surely this is nothing new to them and their decision to stick with their team principal remains.
To perform a u-turn on that simply now they have become public would possibly see criticism that they intended to keep their report private to save face.
Whatever the outcome, it is a mess for the world champions.
Reports of a wedge driven between Horner and Verstappen’s father have grown in recent weeks.
So it was interesting that Jos Verstappen was in the paddock and wearing a team jacket and seemed unmoved to the chaos happening around him
Geri landed in Bahrain on Thursday night but hadn’t been seen until today
A smiling Christian Horner was seen today at the Bahrain Grand Prix
GettyChristian Horner and Geri Halliwell pictured together during the race[/caption]