Far away from the high-octane world of the Grand Prix circuit, Geri Halliwell and Christian Horner turned out in rural Buckinghamshire last Saturday, wrapped up against a chilly English spring, to watch their horse romp around a rather more leisurely course.
Life for the couple has been somewhat sedate since 52-year-old Christian’s brutal sacking as F1 Red Bull team principal last July, barely a year after the multi-millionaire was caught up in a humiliating sex-texting scandal with a female colleague.
And while they were all smiles as they watched their horse Lift Me Up – named after former Spice Girl Geri’s first solo single – gallop home in third place in the 15.30 Men’s Open at the Kimblewick Easter point-to-point, the couple are said to be struggling to adapt to their new existence away from the glitz and glamour of Formula One.
Speaking exclusively to the Daily Mail, friends said this week that while Christian is desperately trying to find a way back to the career he loves, 53-year-old Geri, too, is mourning her old life as an F1 Wag.
The role enabled her to travel the world for Grand Prix races, swanky parties and even, last June, the world premiere of F1: The Movie in New York, where Geri and Christian posed with the film’s star, Brad Pitt, in Times Square.
‘They are both struggling without F1,’ says a source. ‘Geri wants to be married to somebody who is in the limelight. She thought of herself as the First Lady of F1. She loved that world and likes to think she’s centre stage of it. She’s made it clear to Christian that she wants him back in F1 as quickly as possible.
Geri ‘thought of herself as the First Lady of F1. She loved that world and likes to think she’s centre stage of it’ (pictured with Max Verstappen, Sergio Perez and David Beckham in 2022)
The couple were all smiles as they watched their horse Lift Me Up – named after former Spice Girl Geri’s first solo single – gallop home in third place at the Kimblewick Easter point-to-point
‘There’s been a huge amount of stress and problems between them.’
Neighbours of the couple, who live in a sprawling £9.2million Grade II-listed Oxfordshire vicarage, complete with indoor and outdoor pools and a barn full of luxury fast cars, have also become aware of Geri’s growing discontent. ‘As beautiful and peaceful as the village is, it can be a bit dull,’ one villager told the Daily Mail. ‘Geri said she missed the excitement of F1, and you can’t blame her.
‘She’s been used to flying around the world on private jets and going to fancy events, so it’s understandable that you’d miss that. I don’t think it’s been easy for either of them to readjust.
‘They seem like a nice couple and very down to earth, but it’s well known they’ve faced a lot of challenges.’
Such sentiments were echoed by another villager who recalled a recent conversation with the former pop princess-turned lady of the manor. ‘She loves the village, but she was saying how much she misses F1. It was clearly a big part of their lives.’
Formula One was central to the couple from the moment they met in 2009 at the Monaco Grand Prix, when Geri was brought into the pit lane by former F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone.
She later recalled that she ‘automatically knew’ Christian, who joined Red Bull in 2005, was ‘the one’ and told a friend afterwards: ‘I think I’ve met the man I want to marry.’
At the time, her love life was chaotic to say the least. She had recently ended her engagement to Italian yacht tycoon Fabrizio Politi and, just a month before meeting Christian, had started dating aristocrat Henry Beckwith, cousin of socialite and 90s It Girl Tamara Beckwith.
That relationship ended in 2011, and while she crossed paths with Christian again at the 2011 and 2013 Monaco Grands Prix – where she bizarrely gatecrashed a TV interview he was giving – at the time he was in a long-term relationship with Beverley Allen, a former pub landlady he’d been dating since 1999.
In October 2013, when Beverley gave birth to their daughter, Olivia, Horner was on the other side of the world at the Japanese Grand Prix. The couple separated eight weeks later.
The couple pose with Brad Pitt during the F1 Movie premiere in June last year in Times Square, New York
Christian and Geri hung out with singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran at the Texas Grand Prix in 2022
And while there has never been any suggestion of an overlap with his relationship with Geri, the F1 Boss and Ginger Spice made their relationship public in March 2014.
They announced their engagement in The Times eight months later, something that caused ructions with Christian’s parents, Garry and Sara, who had attended Wimbledon that summer with Beverley in what was seen as a clear show of solidarity with their son’s ex-partner.
‘They were very upset over the way he left Beverley with a young baby who was only eight weeks old,’ says the source who spoke to the Daily Mail this week.
They also boycotted Christian and Geri’s lavish 2015 wedding at St Mary’s Church in Woburn, Bedfordshire, and the reception at nearby Woburn Abbey – a celebrity event covered by Hello! magazine, which reproduced countless images of Geri in her white lace Phillipa Lepley dress.
The arrival of a son, Montague, in 2017, went some way to healing the rift with her in-laws. Indeed, Christian’s parents were spotted with the couple last Saturday at the Kimblewick point-to-point.
According to the source: ‘They’ve had to soften a bit since the birth of Montague, who they obviously love a lot, but the rest of the family don’t have much time for her.’
Over the decade or so following their society wedding, the pair divided their time between rural Oxfordshire and the glamorous world of the Grand Prix circuit, alternating effortlessly between the contrasting milieu.
Geri’s once brash Spice Girl image was ditched in favour of a more understated look, thanks to a refined wardrobe made up of almost entirely white, cream and beige combined with the occasional killer cocktail dress for black-tie events.
As well as reinventing herself as a children’s author, she also ensconced herself firmly within royal circles. An ambassador for The Prince’s Trust since 2001, in 2020 she was chosen as an inaugural ambassador for the Royal Commonwealth Society.
Just last month she was seen embracing the King warmly at the Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey, where she appeared as a guest speaker.
Dressed in head-to-foot cream and sporting a delicately veiled head-piece, who could believe this was the same woman who, when she first met the heir to the throne 29 years ago at the height of her Spice Girls fame, cheekily patted his backside?
(L-R) Mel C, Christian Horner, Geri Halliwell and Emma Bunton pose before the 2015 Silverstone Grand Prix
But if marriage and second-time motherhood – she had her first child, a daughter, in 2006 after a relationship with screenwriter Sacha Gervasi – heralded a new-found era of stability for Geri, then the leak in February 2024 of a tranche of racy texts from Christian to a female co-worker put an unwelcome dent in that wholesome image.
Screenshots of the texts were sent anonymously to a Dutch newspaper the day after a three-week investigation, carried out externally by a senior barrister, cleared Horner of all allegations of inappropriate behaviour.
The messages included requests for selfies, comments on the woman’s choice of clothing and sexual chat, with Horner apparently asking her to make sure she deleted their conversations.
At one stage the woman, who lodged a complaint in December 2023 accusing Horner of ‘coercive behaviour’, asked her boss how he would feel if Geri was to message someone in the same way. But as the scandal erupted, Geri put on a show of solidarity with her husband, marching hand in hand with him through the paddock at the Bahrain Grand Prix and smiling for the cameras.
Behind the scenes, however, she was said to have given him a ‘flick of the whip’ and to have ordered him to make it ‘all go away’.
‘Christian was in the dog house,’ says the source. ‘She had all the power. She was the one who was in control and had the upper hand. It was either Geri’s way or the highway. He had to give in to her demands. It was the only way to save his marriage and his public profile.’
A second investigation by another senior barrister again cleared him of inappropriate behaviour, but the incident was seen as an unwelcome distraction by motorsport insiders.
After wrangles at the top and a run of bad results he was sacked last July, just ten days after his 58-year-old former partner Beverley died following a long battle with cancer.
The pair had managed to remain on good terms despite their split and Horner was said to be devastated at the death of his 12-year-old daughter’s mother.
The moment he broke the news of his sacking to Geri was captured on camera for the latest season of the Netflix series Drive To Survive, the behind the scenes documentary about F1, which was screened in February.
In an episode entitled A Bull With No Horns, the pair are seen sitting at their kitchen table at home in Oxfordshire.
While Christian speaks of losing something ‘that was very precious to me’, an emotional-looking Geri throws her arms around her stunned husband. Last September it emerged that he had received an £80million payoff from Red Bull, which no doubt sweetened his departure.
According to the source who spoke to the Daily Mail this week, the scandal and Christian’s sacking have had an ongoing impact on the couple’s relationship, but in recent months the power balance between the two has tipped from being in Geri’s favour back to a more equal footing.
This apparent shift of attitude coincides with growing speculation about Horner’s impending return to the Grand Prix circuit.
This week alone, his name has been linked to the Audi F1 team. There is also talk of negotiations with Aston Martin.
Horner himself said in February that he had spoken to ‘pretty much every team’ on the grid about his return. But according to the source: ‘He’s made it clear that he will only return as a shareholder in a team because he feels that would give him more protection and status.’
Nothing, adds the source, would please Geri more than to see her husband recover his professional status, something that would also facilitate her own trackside return. Some say that as well as her husband’s career she fears that his leaving F1 has impacted her own work opportunities too.
The source said status was important to Geri, who grew up on a Watford council estate, adding: ‘Geri is from a humble working-class background, but she loves playing the lady of the manor and somebody who’s big on the F1 circuit who gets to rub shoulders with the rich and famous.
‘It’s part of her new identity and proof for her that she’s risen up the social ranks and has got somewhere in life.’
Aside from Formula One, Geri’s own career in recent years appears to have revolved around her children’s books.
Last year, however, just weeks after a US tour to mark the publication of her latest novel, Rosie Frost: Ice On Fire, it emerged that her book company, Falcon Queen Productions, had accumulated debts of £1million.
Still, Geri’s days as a Spice Girl guarantee that she will never have to worry about money again. Her main company, Wonderful Productions, earned £1.9million in the 12 months to August last year.
As for the horse racing company she runs with her husband, OMBI Ltd, its latest accounts show it was in profit to the tune of £200,000 at the end of 2024.
They own several race horses, all of which have been renamed with the titles of songs from Geri’s solo music career. As well as ten-year-old Lift Me Up, their stable includes Look At Mee, Mi Chico Latino and It’s Raining Men.
Just last week it was reported that the couple have been granted planning permission to build a £30,000 ‘horse walker’ – an automated exercise device – for private use only at their Oxfordshire home, where they have already built stables for 14 animals, a sure sign of their commitment to the ‘sport of kings’.
But while it no doubt gives them access to the highest echelons of society, it will surely never match their passion for F1.
Until Christian’s future is settled, both are champing at the bit to get back to life in the fast lane.
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