GERI Halliwell is said to have “felt like a fool” for trusting her “prince charming” husband Christian Horner after he played down sexting claims.
The Spice Girl, 51, touched down in Bahrain on Thursday night just as her husband’s bombshell sexts began to spread around the globe.
Geri, pictured with Horner at the Monaco GP, has not yet been spotted at the circuit in BahrainGetty
AFPThe former Spice Girl touched down in Bahrain on Thursday night and was reportedly adamant about not seeing her husband[/caption]
GettyRed Bull Racing chief Horner was spotted today arriving solo at the Bahrain Grand Prix[/caption]
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.
She will most likely bunker down in the couple’s Cotswolds country home and make her decision behind closed doors, the Daily Mail reported.
Friends of the star reportedly stated it would “break her heart” to end things with Christian, whom she considers the “Prince Charming” she has 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.
“But the question now that her inner circle is asking is whether Christian will be sent to the dog house for a few days or whether this is it for good.
A source close to the pop star, who was on a Bahrain-bound private jet when the messages emerged, told The Sun Horner tried to play down the scandal.
They said: “Geri is heartbroken and feels utterly humiliated. She trusted him when he tried to play down the scandal.
“He always told her he’d done nothing wrong. This will really hurt Geri, who has put everything into their marriage.”
“She worked hard for all of this, she jumped through hoops to get him, so will she dump him?”
It is understood Geri went “into meltdown” when she landed in Bahrain to discover Horner’s sext leak.
Her concerned pals added she seemed “fragile” when they saw her a few weeks ago.
A source also told The Mirror: “Geri has been locked in crisis talks with her team this week about how to manage all of this.
“Christian had played down the whole affair to her, but she can’t bear the fact it is now all out in the open.
“She feels like a fool. It has really taken its toll on her and she told pals this week she would not be in Bahrain.
Geri was also said to be adamant about not seeing her husband, but Horner’s mother pleaded with her to publicly support him as a gesture of solidarity, The Mirror reported.
An insider said: “She was adamant she wouldn’t be there, she would not pretend like everything was OK.
“But Christian’s mum has been leaning on her heavily to stand by his side, and publicly back him, and her pleas seem to have worked.
“Her own team had been urging her to keep her distance and seek advice.
She feels like a fool
Source close to Geri Halliwell
The source added: “They are worried about the impact on both her personally and her brand and want her to pause and consider her next move carefully.
“She feels incredibly torn between the two camps. It’s a horrific situation for her to be in, and it is growing worse by the minute.”
It is yet to be seen if she will be joining Horner at the paddock in Bahrain as her husband was pictured today arriving solo at the Grand Prix.
It is also understood that Geri has been left “distraught and devastated” over the scandal, which Horner, 50, had repeatedly played down.
The devastating trove of texts sent anonymously to F1 bosses and media outlets confirmed Horner did send inappropriate messages behind Geri’s back, despite being cleared in a Red Bull probe.
She was adamant she wouldn’t be there, she would not pretend like everything was OK
Source close to Geri Halliwell
Meanwhile, The Sun has learned that Geri knew of the female employee at the centre of the texting scandal. A Red Bull insider said she even approved of the woman working in Horner’s team.
It was also claimed yesterday that the employee was “unhappy” after the messages were leaked and believed the probe into his behaviour had been “one-sided”.
A friend said: “We speak every day and she’s very unhappy – of course. In her way of thinking it’s all very one-sided and she has been crucified.”
GettyFriends of Geri, pictured with Horner on the grid at the Monaco GP, said she ‘feels like a fool’ for trusting her husband[/caption]
PAThe texts sent anonymously to F1 bosses and media outlets confirmed Horner did send inappropriate messages behind Geri’s back, despite being cleared in a Red Bull probe[/caption]
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