Michelle Cockayne And Her Relationship With Gary Lineker
England’s former striker Gary Lineker married twice and got divorced with both of his wives, Michelle Cockayne and Danielle Bux. The football pundit who is now a presenter of BBC’s Match Of The Day is said to be in good terms with his first wife Michelle Cockayne and second wife Danielle Bux.
Michelle Cockayne and Gary have four sons and the little family seems to be tight despite being separated.
More about Michelle Cockayne and Gary Lineker’s relationship…
First Things First, Who Is Michelle Cockayne And Gary Lineker?
Image Source/The Times
Gary Lineker is no stranger to the screen. From being the first Englishman to receive Golden Boot due to his FIFA World Cup achievements to the outspoken sports presenter he is today, Gary is well-loved and highly respected.
Impressively, he was awarded the FIFA Fair Play Award in 1990 for never receiving a yellow or red card throughout his football career. He had also scored a total of 330 goals in 567 competitive games in his sixteen-year career.
Upon retiring, he worked as a columnist for The Mail on Sunday, an anchor for Al Jazeera Sport, and now, he is among the top paid presenters in BBC (Adele Roberts is another BBC talent who is on her way to stardom!).
Hence, it is no surprise that his spouse receives equal attention. Michelle Cockayne and Gary were married for twenty years.
Fun Fact: They even made an appearance in Splitting Heirs as a couple in a restaurant.
Gary Lineker’s And Michelle Cockayne’s Kids
The couple got married in 1986 and they have four sons named George, 28, Harry, 25, Tobias, 24, and Angus, 22. Gary is known to share photos of him and his boys in social media platforms. Evidently, they look tight and happy together.
Unfortunately, after living together for around two decades, Michelle and Gary said goodbye to each other. Apparently, Michelle was divorcing Gary for “unreasonable behaviour,” and some of Gary’s actions that caused her “stress and anxiety.”
Amazingly, they managed to keep in touch even after the divorce. According to a source, unlike his divorce with his second wife, his divorce with Michelle was decent.
“Danielle changed Gary for the worse. He seemed to choose her over his family. He became distant and started to care about his appearance more.
“It was in stark contrast to his first marriage to Michelle. She was close to Gary’s family and still stays in touch now.”
The Once-Young Parents Had To Go Through A Nightmare Together
Image Source/Daily Mirror
Their son George was diagnosed with leukemia when he was just two months old. Heartbreakingly, doctors lost hope for him and they were told he wouldn’t make it through the night.
“I could cope with it while he was ill. I could cope with it while I felt there was hope. But there was a couple of times when they told us, they said, ‘Honestly, we’ve got to warn you that we will be quite surprised if he makes it through the night.”
“Those first few days were traumatic.”
“There were at least two occasions when we were sat down and told that the chances of him making it through the night were slim.
“I used to have this recurring nightmare of carrying this small white coffin. And waking up in cold sweats every time I had it.”
“Thankfully I never had to live that scenario.”
Amazingly, little George fought through and made it!
“We didn’t lose him, so I don’t feel we were dreadfully unfortunate, I think we were unbelievably fortunate because the odds of him making it were pretty low and he did.”
Rewinding To The Time When Michelle and Gary Were Caught Being Naughty In A Car!
In their younger carefree days when they were dating, the couple had a steamy session in Gary’s Fiat Uno!
Gary revealed that,
“Going way back in my early days when I was [on about] £100-a-week and early dating days with my boys’ mother, I used to have, you know the old sponsor’s cars in those days? I had a Fiat Uno with ‘Gary Lineker Drives’… all over it, massive letters. It was embarrassing.
“You know, as you do at some point when you’re dating, we found a country lane, out in the middle of nowhere, and… bam, bam, bam… anyway. There we are in the car, it all steams up. It was winter.
“Suddenly, [we] get a knock on the window. So I go, ‘What’s that!?’ and someone is going, ‘Gary, we know you’re in there lad! What you up to?’”
Michelle Cockayne and Gary Lineker have definitely come a long way from being naughty youngsters to parents of four grown-up sons!
