Because I truly do not follow Formula 1 gossip, I came at the Christian Horner story solely out of interest in his wife, former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell (who now goes by Geri Horner). Basically, Geri and Christian Horner have been married since 2015, after she was the side-chick and he dumped his longtime partner FOR Geri. Horner is a big deal in the F1 franchise – he’s the “Principal of Red Bull Racing,” which is basically a chief-executive position. He’s also, reportedly, a pretty sleazy guy, especially when it comes to women. For weeks/months, there was an internal investigation into Horner’s texts/WhatsApp messages to a female member of the team (and a subordinate – Horner is this woman’s boss). The messages rise to the level of sexual harassment, but F1 tried to bury the situation last week, and Horner turned up at the Bahrain Grand Prix with his wife and they put on a show of a loving, happily-married couple. Since then, Red Bull Racing SUSPENDED the woman – the one accusing Horner of harassment – with full pay. Horner was never suspended during the investigation. It’s an extremely bad look, but Horner is basically doing a victory lap ahead of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix this weekend:
Christian Horner praised his wife, former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell, for her support amid the fallout from an investigation into his alleged inappropriate behavior toward a female Red Bull employee.
“It’s obviously been a very trying period,” the team principal, 50, said during a press conference ahead of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in Jeddah on Thursday. “It has been of great interest in different elements of the media for different reasons, [but] I think it’s time to draw a line under it,” he went on, calling for an end to the “scrutiny” placed on his marriage.
The couple put on a united front at the Formula 1 season opener in Bahrain last weekend, just days after an independent inquiry cleared Horner of any misconduct. However, an explosive email containing private WhatsApp messages purporting to be between Horner and his accuser were subsequently sent to nearly 200 high-level F1 executives and journalists.
“I’m very fortunate that I have a beautiful family and a very supportive wife. And I’m the only one who has been named in this,” Horner said on Thursday, noting that his three children also had been dragged into the scandal.
“My wife has been phenomenally supportive through this, as has my family, but the intrusion on my family is now enough, and we need to move forward and focus on what we are here for,” the long-tenured team boss added. “It is time now to focus on why we are here, which is to go Formula 1 racing.”
Horner and Halliwell, 51, tied the knot in 2015 and are parents to 7-year-old son Monty. They also share daughter Bluebell, 17, from the singer’s relationship with Sacha Gervasi and daughter Olivia, 10, from the former driver’s first marriage to Beverley Allen.
His comments came a few hours after multiple outlets confirmed the unidentified woman who had accused him of inappropriate behavior has been suspended with full pay from her job at the team’s UK headquarters in Milton Keynes.
Even some of the more sexist media outlets are like “wow, this looks really bad, to suspend a woman who accused her boss of sexual harassment?” The F1 fans seem particularly outraged too, but there’s always so much internal drama within F1, I can’t tell if it’s specifically about this Horner situation or if it’s about a million other things. Anyway, powerful men will use their power to protect themselves and no one else. And Geri is just supposed to sit there, being the “good wife.”
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.