Ryan Giggs wanted sex all the time, had eight affairs, ex-girlfriend claims

The trial of former Manchester United ace Ryan Giggs heard the footballer wanted sex “all the time” and cheated on his ex Kate Greville eight times.

The 48-year-old former Wales manager is accused of controlling behaviour towards Ms Greville from 2017 until their split in 2020 and assault occasioning actual bodily harm against her.

He is also accused of assaulting her sister Emma Greville. Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court heard how he and Kate Greville had a “toxic” and “turbulent” seven-year relationship. Jurors heard Ms Greville has levelled a number of allegations against Giggs including that he once physically threw her out of their home and that he would threaten to send personal photos to her friends.

The alleged assaults against Ms Greville and her younger sister Emma took place in November 2020 during an argument at the pair’s home in Worsley, Greater Manchester, the court heard. Ms Greville, 37, has accused Giggs of headbutting her in the face while her younger sister says she was elbowed in the jaw when she tried to pull the former Wales manager off her.

Giggs, who denies all charges, won 64 caps for Wales and 13 Premier League titles, two Champions League trophies, four FA Cups and three League Cups during his time at Manchester United. He is also a co-owner of League Two side Salford City.

Ms Greville gave evidence Giggs “grabbed her by both shoulders, looked her in the eyes and headbutted her” on November 1, 2020. She said the pair rowed at The Stock Exchange in Manchester, which Giggs part-owns, and she came home early to pack her things and leave him.

But he arrived ten minutes later and caught her packing up the car with her sister and began throwing things out of the car, she claimed. She said: “He was very angry. I hadn’t seen him that angry before.”

Ms Greville said she had put Giggs’ phone in another room and he tried to take her phone in retaliation which ended with the pair grappling on the floor.

She said: “He’s pinning me down on the floor trying to reach for my hand. I’m pushing him with my hands and pushing his face with my hands and trying to kick my legs to kick him off me. I was shouting to my sister for help. She grabbed him around the waist to try to pull him off. He pushed his arm back.”

The court heard Giggs took Ms Greville’s phone and left the house, before coming back and telling the sisters he had called the police. Ms Greville said: “I said ‘I’m glad the police are coming because you attacked me so I will tell them exactly what happened’. He came at me from nowhere and grabbed me by my shoulders and headbutted me in my face.

“[He held me by] Both shoulders. He didn’t say sorry, he said nothing. I said ‘I can’t believe you have just done that. I was in shock. It was with real intent. He wanted to hurt me and he looked at me straight in the eyes and headbutted me in the face.

“He said to me: “You need to think about this Kate, this will ruin me and ruin you. Think about my job, think about my career, think about my kids.”

In a 105-minute police interview played to the court, Ms Greville told the police officer Giggs did not force himself on her but “he was using sex to get to me” and would “randomly send sexual messages or pictures.” Ms Greville said he would turn up at her house and they would have sex, even if they were not strictly together at the time.

She said: “It was really not a nice time. I felt he was just using me for sex. I could feel it. He would never leave me alone. There was never a time he didn’t want to have sex. It was every other day or something.”

She added later: “My dad got told he had cancer, and he didn’t even look up from his phone. He’d constantly tell me I was moody, and he’d tell me to leave. He’d always want sex at night but then he’d give me a tiny bit of affection and I’d cling onto that.”

The court heard the pair met in 2013 as Giggs was a PR client of the agency Ms Greville worked for and she helped him on his hotel and restaurant projects. Giggs was married to Stacey Cooke, the mother of his two children, and Ms Greville said she was in a “controlling relationship” with her husband.

Ms Greville claimed Giggs told her she was like his ex Stacey as they both had a “problem with alcohol” and would sometimes call her Stacey’s name. Giving evidence this afternoon, Ms Greville said: He said I was just like his ex-wife and he called me her name.

“He said she used to make his life hell and she had a problem with alcohol – I was just like her.” She told the court Giggs would tell her she was a “different person” when she was drinking and would also send abusive messages if she did not reply to her quickly enough when she was out with friends.

Discussing a series of messages in which Giggs apologises for blocking Ms Greville when she was on a night out, she said: “This was the whole drink thing, he thought I was drunk and again it was related back to Stacey again.”

Jurors heard Ms Greville moved first to Abu Dhabi and later to Dubai as she did not believe Giggs would leave his wife for her. She said in her police interview: “I made the decision to move to Abu Dhabi to leave. I thought this is not good for me mentally. Also people started to find out at work.

“I was ashamed as he was a married man and I didn’t want anyone to know. In my head, I was thinking he’s not going to be chasing me now. Anyway, he did. I was just madly in love with him basically. He was pursuing me and messaging me. He would message me saying he had moved out. I would hear something else and he would deny it. That went on for ages.”

She said she blocked Giggs again in 2016 after the affair was leaked to the press, which was “horrendous”. Ms Greville said: “He started messaging my friends and he had emailed me and they had gone into a secure folder, a bit like Sex In the City. The emails were telling me how his day was. I gave in and started speaking again”.

The court heard Ms Greville started suffering “horrendous anxiety” a year into her relationship with Giggs. She told detectives in her police interview Giggs would switch between being nice and abusive to her and would make promises that they could live together and start a family.

She said: “Everything he was saying he was making all these promises but I would find stuff out, people would tell me things about what they had seen him do. It was like two different people and the person he told me he was, the person I was hearing things about. I didn’t know what to believe. Is he a good person or a bad person? Is he telling the truth or lying?

“Or is it me and I’m very paranoid and making this all up in my head? It was like a constant battle. I started getting the most horrendous anxiety. I would sit down and I felt like I had run a marathon and I couldn’t breathe.”

She said after moving back to Manchester from Dubai to be with him, she discovered he had been seeing other women and said: “It was almost like this rug had been pulled from underneath my feet. I honestly felt like I didn’t want to carry on anymore.

“He was my best friend, my soul mate and the realisation that he wasn’t I just really struggled, it was really hard. It was all little things that built up to this horrendous anxiety he gave me.”

The court heard Ms Greville received an email from a man with an attachment of a naked photo asking if it was Giggs. Ms Greville told police they were in Dubai at the time and had a row the previous evening as Giggs had been on his phone for 20 minutes at the dinner table.

She said: “I got an anonymous email from a guy with a picture of Ryan, a naked picture of Ryan. The email said ‘I found this on my wife’s phone, is it him?’ And it was Ryan, he had sent me the same picture. This one didn’t have his head in but it was the same picture. He said ‘I have got kids, I don’t want this blown up’.”

Ms Greville said she confronted Giggs and he at first said it was “banter” and from “ages ago” but she looked on her phone and found he had sent her the picture two weeks ago. She added: “He couldn’t defend that because I had this evidence. He then started to be really nice to me. The nice Ryan I had before, it had come back.

“It wouldn’t last very long. He would go back to himself after a little bit. The guilt he had went away.”

Ms Greville told the court when she worked for Giggs he would send her emails saying that she couldn’t work for him anymore and would threaten her when she did not reply. She said: “He sent me one email and it was blackmail and one of our videos we had done. He would say ‘If you don’t respond to me or unblock me I’m going to send this to the group or I’m going to send these messages to people showing what you are doing, I’m going to tell your boss this is what you’re doing’.

“I didn’t want to look at the video so I deleted it straight away. It could have been something funny but it could have been sexual. The title was blackmail so at the time I didn’t want to look at it. I was scared he would just message people.”

Giving evidence in court, Ms Greville said: “I thought it was a video of a sexual nature he was then going to send to the group. I had no control of what he could do and his actions.

“It was going to cause an issue with my job and career. I was just mortified he would even put on my work email any sort of video. So I deleted it straight away and then I unblocked him.”

Giggs had ‘eight affairs’ while in a relationship with Ms Greville
Ryan Giggs cheated on her with eight women during the couple’s relationship, the court heard, which she discovered after looking at his iPad. She said: “The reality of what I had found on that iPad was way worse than I could imagine.

“Eight women he was having affairs with while he was with me. Full-on relationships.” She told police she had suspicions about one woman called ‘Helen’, who she described as a “model and It girl” after finding out she was on the same flight as Giggs when he went to Barcelona for the Champions League.

Ms Greville also said she suspected Ryan of having an affair with a woman called Zara when they travelled to Russia for the World Cup in 2018. She said: “We were in Russia and I got a feeling there was someone else. I got an anonymous email from someone saying ‘’Ryan has been in a relationship with another girl for a year. Just want you to know it’s 100% true.’ I said ‘Who is this? How do you know?’ They said ‘It’s true’ then they deleted their email address.”

She said around Christmas that year she was having drinks at The Ivy when a friend said he thought Giggs was dating a woman called Zara Charles. Ms Greville said: “He was in Ireland and I contacted him and he said ‘Don’t you dare speak to people about me I don’t like it when you speak to people about me’.

“He then messages the guy saying ‘Why are you saying I’m in a relationship with another girl?’ Then shows me the message then blocks me.

“This girl started messaging me after asking me to follow me on Instagram She said ‘I can’t talk about it but I’m really upset about it’.”

Ms Greville described an incident during their relationship when the former Wales winger “flipped” in a hotel room and grabbed her “hard” by the wrists. She said he “literally dragged” her naked body across the floor before he threw her belongings into the corridor.

Ms Greville said she was “left humiliated and embarrassed” as she was only in a towel and had to grab her belongings and try to get back into the suite, adding: “That was the first time he was aggressive to me.” Ms Greville also described another row when they were in bed and Giggs “kicked her in the back” causing her to fall off the bed before throwing her bag and laptop at her head, leaving her with a “massive lump”.

On another occasion she said Giggs called her by his ex-wife’s name and pulled the strap on her bag so hard that she fell forward and landed on her knee, causing a bruise. Jurors heard yesterday Giggs “lost control” and headbutted Ms Greville in November 2020 after she decided to leave him, and elbowed her sister Emma in the jaw as she attempted to pull him off Ms Greville.

Emma Greville
Ryan Giggs