Christine Baumgartner filed for divorce from Kevin Costner on May 1. The divorce war started off with a bang, and it’s been non-stop action since then. Costner claimed that when Christine filed for divorce, she triggered a clause in the prenup, in which she was required to move out of all of their family homes within 30 days. Christine didn’t do that – she stayed put in their enormous Carpinteria home with their three minor children. Christine has also informed the court that she will contest the prenup, and she wants $248K a month in child support. Well, there has been a negotiation behind the scenes, and apparently Christine has now agreed to leave the Carpinteria home… as long as he pays up.
Kevin Costner’s estranged wife says she will pack up and move out of their home under one condition … he’s got to pony up more dough. According to new legal docs, obtained by RadarOnline.com, Christine Baumgartner says she will move out of the beachfront home in Carpinteria, CA on August 31 … as long as Kevin provides financial support as determined by the court.
Christine claims Kevin wants her to find a new place to live ASAP without a financial plan in place … and with three kids, she says it’s not in their best interests for her to move into a new place until she knows how much money she’s going to be getting from Kevin.
Remember … Kevin says Christine has so far refused to move out of the home he insists he owns, and he says their prenuptial agreement makes it clear Christine had 30 days to vacate the home when she filed for divorce on May 1, a deadline she’s already missed.
Kevin, as we’ve reported, already says he’s shelled out $1 million for Christine to find a new place to live … and he’s been asking the court to get her out of the home, claiming she’s using her position as leverage to make him agree to her financial demands.
I think Christine’s position is entirely reasonable – she shouldn’t have to rush out and grab the first rental she sees, nor should she rush to get a mortgage on a home she might not be able to afford long-term. Unfortunately, Costner is contesting the idea that she needs $248K a month in child support. He claims that figure is inflated because she’s including the cost of plastic surgery?
Kevin Costner says his estranged wife is living in outer space thinking she’s entitled to $248,000 a month in child support, because some of her alleged “expenses” include her own plastic surgery … according to court docs filed by Kevin.
Kevin’s forensic accountant says in the new divorce docs, the expenses Christine Baumgartner uses to justify a quarter-mil a month are outrageous. One of the expenses Christine lists includes more than $100,000 in cosmetic surgery — her own. There’s also thousands of dollars in boutique shopping, huge ATM withdrawals and other expenses Kevin’s people say have nothing to do with child support.
A lot of what Christine lists as expenses are on credit card bills … including her own attorney’s fees. And, Costner’s accountant says there are one-time expenses that have nothing to do with child support, such as construction loans.
According to the docs, Kevin has been paying all the expenses for the kids, and will continue to do so. He says the reasonable amount — the amount he is currently paying … $51,940 a month.
As we reported, Christine has now agreed to leave the family house and get a place of her own by the end of August. His lawyer, Laura Wasser, will appear in court on July 5 to make sure Christine is ordered out by the end of August, if not before. At that hearing, we’re told Christine will contest the validity of the prenup, and Wasser will argue it’s rock solid.
Live by the forensic accountant, die by the forensic accountant. I mean, from what I’ve seen, Christine’s request for $248K a month was based on Costner’s assets, income and the reasonable expectation that Christine has the right to raise the kids in a comparable situation. Christine’s lawyer has also made it abundantly clear that Costner has a lot of money going out every month. Now, I said at the beginning of this that I thought $248K was a negotiation tactic, and Christine will probably take half that. But I also hope she gets that stupid prenup thrown out entirely.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
Messier by the day. Way too public with all the details on both sides.
If I am reading this correctly, she listed the plastic surgery as an expense? Why would an atty or just any person at all ok that? Whatever she gets should be based on his income and the fact that there are 3 kids to support. 250k a month is probably a slim % of his earnnings and he should just pay. If there is anything to the rumor of a romance for her, I can see being pissed, but I very, very seriously doubt it’s true.
Probably because she knew she wouldn’t get the full amount she asked for and was trying to pad the amount or something.
Sounds more to me like he’s trying to publicly embarrass her. I agree with tealily that it may have been wrapped up in overall expenses… but publicizing that info is an intimidation tactic to get her to heel. Pretty nasty.
I wouldn’t take Costner’s assertion that she included plastic surgery as an expense. That’s his take, not a fact. For example, she could have gone to a dermatologist for mole removal, which is a legitimate medical expense, and his team could protest because that derm also does cosmetic work.
Consider the source.
As a mom and former spouse myself, her adding elective, not medically necessary surgery costs comes off bad and regardless of the type of spouse he did it’s going to paint her in a negative light as well as being greedy and going beyond what is her fair share and in the best interest of the children. The cost she is requesting should stick to what she’s reasonably entitled to (which i find reasonable for her (he already financially supports kids so not including that in my comment) which a judge is probably going to end up deciding in this case, which can go either way, but when you start inflating that number to be Petty it can come back to bite you in the butt . It’ll be interesting how it plays out indeed……..
💯. They are both behaving badly.
Men will do anything to avoid child support, won’t they? I don’t have a huge amount of respect for women who marry a rich geezer looking for a payday, but a legal agreement is a legal agreement, and I have even less respect for a man who attempts to control his wife and children through financial manipulation or abuse. They’re both absolute caricatures but the kids are entitled to full support and he married a significantly younger woman with his eyes open. Does he want to marry a woman his own age with no cosmetic procedures?
My mother practiced family law for many years. Child support is based on a % of the non-custodial parent’s income – assets (houses, cars, etc.) do not factor in except for expenses related to these assets (unless both parties own the assets jointly). The court will look at tax returns, W-2s and another any forms of income be it 1099 or otherwise. From there, they will settle upon a % income + additional expenses (college, braces, cars, college housing, etc.). She may have added her cosmetic surgery to increase monthly expenses in a bid to get more (knowing he’d negotiate her down). My mom used to say that the more $$ a client had, the harder they were to control – they’d make horrible statements to their friends, relatives and their kids (that’s called parental alienation) – the court highly frowns upon this last one. At some point, even if their attorneys can’t control them, I’d like to think the court will tell them to keep their dirty laundry private.
At the end of the day….This publicity is going to lower Kevin Costner’s public cache & have his lasting public memory be that of a mean miserly man….and he STILL gone have to pay….I see why that old skool Blues song 🎵 “It’s cheaper to keep her” was so popular….
Self-destruction AIN’T no joke!
I think that song is called “Making Whoopee.”
I hope it lowers his cache! I’ve been over him for decades.
You should look up the 1973 Johnnie Taylor R&B iconic hit “Cheaper To Keep Her”…the lyrics are HILARIOUS and SO APPLICABLE! 😝
True. What these toxic men don’t realize is that we don’t forget that they showed their @ss while trying to “save money”. Costner had a clean slate for the last few years and now he’s blowing it up. Give her what she’s asking for and move on. Call off the dogs and stop leaking to TMZ – he’s only going to look worst.
Here’s the thing, though. I really do not thing that women are his audience anymore, and many men probably have zero issues with what he is doing. And he has a long history of thumbing his nose and everyone and everything, including Hollywood. I truly do not think he cares.
I’m astonished he still has an audience. I woulda hit that so hard so fast in the 90s, but I was in my 20s. My tastes have refined quite a bit since then.
How likely is it that she’ll be able to have the pre-nup thrown out? I hope she’s able to because he sounds like a nightmare, but I’m wondering how likely it is. Costner saying anything about plastic surgery is just gross.
I’m not an attorney but I think it will be thrown out. It’s an old contract (20ish yo) and there are now three minor children who could be affected by it (having their primary caregiver thrown out of the house).
I’d also be willing to bet there are clauses in the contract that Kevin won’t want made public.
A good attorney should be able to have the pre-nup voided.
I feel like her chances are pretty good. When she signed it they had no children. Now they have three. And from what I’ve heard about it the pre-nup didn’t mention kids. So that alone changes a lot as far as what she is entitled to.
Except that what she is entitled to and child support are two different things. Her side is definitely wise to conflate the two, especially with the public, but the CT will consider them separately.
Yeah I think her side is winning this PR war but I don’t think the court is going to entirely side with her. Costner is offering child support AND offering to pay tuition, health insurance, extra curriculars, camps etc for the kids. I think he is going to have to pay more than 50k but he’s not going to pay the 250k she is asking for.
@Joesphine and @Becks1 – so far the only thing that’s been made public IS what she is asking for in child support. There has been no reports in regards to alimony. What he is fighting against is what she is asking in child support. She is asking for a high number because she knows that ultimately it will likely be about half of that. That is just standard negotiating practice. You ask for a number higher than what you want/need and negotiate down.
@Ameerah I am a lawyer so I understand negotiating AND I stand by my comment. Many people here seem to think that both she SHOULD and she WILL get the full amount she is asking for. She won’t, especially with the other expenses he has already agreed to cover.
It’s honestly not very likely if the statutory requirements were complied with when they signed it. I’m guessing her side knows this, so the calculation is that Kevin may be willing to throw some money her way the longer he looks like an asshole in public.
It’s a misconception that prenups are easy to invalidate.
I know in my state, prenups are hard to invalidate BUT post nups are a lot easier, so people saying she should have re-negotiated after having kids – that might have put her in a worse spot.
So far we have no idea what she is asking for in alimony. I doubt they have even gotten to that. Right now what she is asking for is child support and money for the move. HE is attempting to use the pre-nup to say she is not entitled to money for a move for her and the kids. Which is utterly absurd. What she is asking for is not unreasonable – she wants to know what she will actually have coming in before purchases a home or signs a lease. A Judge may not invalidate the pre-nup, but the pre-nup apparently makes no mention of money for housing and child support. Now what she will be able to negotiate for herself may in fact be limited. But that doesn’t seem to be her argument at the moment.
I remember articles from the time about how outrageous prenups at the time were. They included clauses about not gaining weight, having to get approval for haircuts, sometimes even expectations for what the sexual relationship would be. It was all lawyers talking about clients anonymously, so could just have been BS fishing for clients, but there was definitely garbage in pre-nups that courts would not look kindly on today. And knowing Costner, there’s probably some bad stuff in there.
She’d be smart to ask for a house that would have cost $1M in 2004. Not putting an inflation clause in for that shows incompetent lawyering from whoever drew this up.
By law, the prenup cannot address or limit child support–that obligation runs from the parent to the child, not the spouses entering into the contract. She’s saying, this is how much we need, he’s saying that she’s including her personal expenses in the assessment of the children’s needs & she waived the right to spousal support in the prenup (which is pretty typical). It appears they did address housing for her (i.e., “Vacate all my homes & I’ll give you $1 million to get lost, Love, Kevin”).
The child support will be determined by formula. It appears he’s determined to fight the rest tooth & nail.
He is so TRASH! What a horrible, sad and petty man. I hope that Christine gets her money and finds a man who is fit and fine with a decent hairline and lives a joyful life with her children. The way Costner has become an absolute punk is my eyes? Lump him in with Depp and Pitt.
He should buy a house of the same value as the one she’s vacating and put it in her name. Problems solved. Ladies, never agree to leave your name off property. In fact, if a man is committed to you, he should be fine with putting the property in YOUR name! The people I’ve known with that arrangement all had long, happy marriages with men who never strayed. (And if you’re the one with wealth and the home, leave it in your name, for the reasons stated above.)
God. I’m sad he got Wasser. She’s a tiger and everyone knows it.
I know but that doesn’t mean that she will win. Though she has the name and mostly her mothers reputation, it doesn’t automatically transfer over.
I hope she gets everything she is asking for. She is NOT being unreasonable. They were married nearly 20 years and have 3 kids.
Costner doesn’t seem to mind spilling the dirty laundry on Christine but expects her AND his children to live without a proper home and without the financial support too? Who, in there right mind, would take that offer of $50k a month? Not from someone that has 3/4 palatial properties on top of his vast fortune? And Costner claiming that HIS money doesn’t go to her plastic surgery??
Costner is looking worse by each statement he makes and every claim he is demanding. IF Costner didn’t want to smear his reputation in HW, he’s too late, much too late. Pay up buddy!!
OK, I’m bored with this divorce now.
This will follow every other wealthy divorce pattern.
I’m done.
I am assuming that when she leaves the house she takes the kids with her. It’s not like he’s around much anyway and she’s the primary care-giver. So, she goes, they go, right?
So basically she wants a divorce, and he’s like “leave our home and take our children with you.” That is so messed up! The kids being able to stay in their home is more important than him being able to stay in it whenever he is in town. He has multiple dwellings and plenty of money to find something else for himself. I know he doesn’t want his ex to end up owning the whole thing but FFS, how can he not prioritize his children and let them stay until they’re all off to college at least?
What a turd. I hear his lawyer is tough. I hope hers is (are) too.
It’s probably more like “leave our home but the kids can stay”. He probably thinks nannies are an adequate substitute for the mother who has been the primary parent their whole lives.
@BLUENAILSBETTY
Ha- that was a good diss. He probably is that tone deaf and disconnected.
His statements make him sound like the ultimate you do you guy.
More like – leave MY home and take YOUR kids with you.
I love how he says he can’t afford it unless he liquidates his assets. He has a property portfolio worth half a billion dollars. Sell a small house, give her a lump sum and be done. OR better yet, give her one of your many houses so she and the children can live there and then reduce the monthly amount needed.
Rich people problems. I swear.
I saw in the Daily Mail (while usually not trustworthy, it appears they pulled this data from legit records) that Kev has only $7.5 million net worth. Insane.
Kevvie, you don’t want to bring up HER plastic surgery unless you want yours and your hair plugs brought up.
I just looked on Redfin/Zillow & currently in the 90210 area code there is NOTHING available for $1M > & the cheapest I saw was $1.15M 1300 sq. ft. So Kevin is on some BS☹️
They live much closer to Santa Barbara than BH but yes, there is no way she can purchase a house for $1 million anywhere near her current residence.
I’m Black. And I hope she gets everything she’s asking for. Don’t use Black and Brown folks as cover of your opinions.
Yeah I don’t understand how anyone finds her side reasonable.
It is not OK for her to only have 30 days to vacate the home but she is totally unreasonable for everything else. Like what did she contribute exactly? This is what women should keep in mind when it comes to being dependent on a man, they will never have our back.
She should stand her ground on the fact that she will not go anywhere until he finds a comparable house for her and the kids though.
https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0112/how-much-is-a-homemaker-worth.aspx
@CLETLY- this is only one of several articles which put a financial number on the labor involved in being a stay at home wife.
I would personally roll over dead before I gave up my paycheck. I saw how my mom was treated doing that and I haven’t personally seen the guy I thought I married since the kid was born.
But, for the women who didn’t see it coming and gave up the overtly paid work, they are absolutely contributing and there is a number for it.
Christine doesn’t do any hard labor. She admitted in court documents that she has a housekeeper, someone who grocery shops and cooks and a house manager that is in charge of running the day to day household activities. Making generic arguments about stay at home moms doesn’t apply here.
@Well Well – CEOs don’t do hard labor, either, but they still get paid for their work. Basically, it seems he’s been traveling and concentrating on his career and she’s been handling everything at home, whether with her own two hands or by managing a staff.
@Eurydice: Christine doesn’t work. Someone has to make the money. They live a lavish lifestyle and Christine has made clear in court documents that she wants to maintain that lifestyle, and the only way to do that is by Kevin working a lot. I used to work in child support services for a few years and we dealt with court ordered child support and I definitely feel Christine’s demands are unreasonable.
Conversely, someone is afforded the opportunity to both make money and be emotionally and socially supported with a spouse and children that will increase his life expectancy and social status.
@Well Well – I’ve spent most of my working life in male dominated careers. The men making pantloads of money have both a “work wife” and a “home wife” – there’s no way they can focus 100% on their careers if they didn’t have people helping them. And that’s before we get to emotional relationships and children. I don’t know (or care) if Christine’s demands are unreasonable or not. What I’m saying is that men couldn’t make lots of money if they had to manage a “full life” all by themselves. They couldn’t even do it if they hired a whole staff, because they’d need someone to manage that whole staff. That’s the fallacy that women fell into – the idea that they could have it all and do it all by themselves. Christine has been part of Kevin’s life for 22 years – if he wants to discard her, that’s fine, I don’t care. But it doesn’t make me admire him for it.
@Eurydice: and I don’t know or care about the points you’re making and I don’t admire Christine for how she’s handling this divorce. Christine is not alleging affairs or abuse or even the value of a stay at home mom as her reasoning for filing for divorce or requesting a quarter million a month from Kevin. Her argument is he works a lot and she lives an extraordinary lifestyle and wants to maintain it for “the kids”. There’s many comments in here trying to shame anyone who challenges Christine and her motives, and it feels we can’t have a discussion or even a passionate debate regarding this divorce and merits of Christine’s arguments.
@WEll Well – when I said I didn’t care about the reasonableness of Christine’s demands, I didn’t mean that I don’t care about your opinion of them. And I didn’t mean that I admire Christine, either. I only meant that I don’t know either of them or anything about the inner workings of their personal lives to be able to judge the merits of either side.
I was addressing the more general idea of what constitutes “work” in a marriage – and that just because a woman has lived a lavish lifestyle provided for by her husband and just because she doesn’t do the manual labor in the house herself, doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s brought nothing to the marriage. Costner seems to think the value of her contribution is equal to what he spent on her during the marriage plus the prenup; she thinks it’s a great deal more. It’s a super transactional way of looking at things and the court/lawyers will come up with a number.
Nice that the comments have migrated from “she signed it & should obey it” (pre nup) to “let’s hope it gets thrown out”
Yep, I’m still that petty.
Equality my foot. And don’t even get me started on the Federline comparison! This woman has been & continues to be emotionally & financially abused.
Kevin…you stubborn, old man.
Save yourself further public embarrassment, have your lawyer make a one time offer.
All the costs for the kids + $50m to Christine + $10M trusts for each kid.
Get out of all 3 of my houses, the kids can stay in the $145M house with me, joint custody, Nannies, staff, etc. so as not to disrupt their lives much.
One time offer, sign it in 10 days + NDA.
(No one needs 3 giant estates + upkeep, Kevin.) Plus at close to 70, he has that Horizon project coming in. You’d think he would want the divorce settled before that payday comes in.
He was giving interviews stating he mortgaged one of the houses for $80-$100M to finance that but he is nickel and dime-ing the divorce? Idiot.
Why is he so ungodly stupid in this?
The longer it goes, the PR gets worse, the lawyers are costing $$, he will end up paying all the cost for the divorce.
Prenup or not, anyone trying to convince me that a 49 y/o, she has a college education, can not restart their lives with $50M in the bank is full of bs.
Yes, the family standard of living will change but Kevin is not known for depriving his children.
They all live very, very well.
He is a jerk in many ways but does she truly think an Ex is going to pay for lavish family vacations and private jets 5x a year for her and the kids?
Not going to happen. His ego will pay extra to fight back.
Those kids will be fine! They are 1%ers, fgs!
Enough with the back and forth.
Man up Kevin. Next court date in Wednesday. Throw around the cash and shut this down.
I’d love to know WHAT he did to her…he’ll hath no fury! All kidding aside, I do think that prenup is bogus. I seem to remember that he was just coming off that “Waterworld” debacle that bombed at the box office. Back then, he was no longer the big draw he was before. Perhaps that’s why she agreed to that lame prenup. I remember reading an article about prenups in general where lawyers were saying that they could always tell which ones were signed in haste in the limo on the way to the ceremony, due to the shaky signatures.
I think this press is a preemptive attempt on his side to muddy her character. If you remember, at the beginning of all this, he was trying to stop her from making the DETAILS of the prenup public. That means they’re really awful and damaging to him. IMO it’s beyond the paltry amount of support (for their economic situation) or the days to vacate. Like others have alluded to, I bet there’s something about her weight, etc. I seem to remember in the 90s there were rumors about required number of times per month for sex, as well as other things.
Don’t fall for his BS. He treated his first wife like dirt, this is his MO.
He is just gross.
Yeah, I get that they are wealthy and she won’t be living in squalor but he really expected her and their children to vacate the home in 30 days? Not reasonable despite any prenup.
The prenup states she must vacate the house in 30 days.
Before they had kids.
Kevin has publicly stated in the last court filing, the kids and all their stuff can remain in the house and use it as their primary house.
How weird would that be tho? Is she supposed to move out, then drive over every day to oversee the kids and staff?
Since we know at one point they broke up bc she wanted kids + he did not.
They reunited, agreed to marry + kids.
WHY didn’t she insist on an updated prenup after each birth?
I heard Kevin gave her $100K upon the marriage + another $100K on the first anniversary.
And funded 2 biz for her that both went belly up.
I know 200K isn’t that much in Kevinland but, didn’t she invest that at all for herself?
I mean $200k invested over 18-20 years is some good walking around money.
So, once Kevin is divorced….Who will be our next Celeb to divorce in glorious detail?
Btw, I’d love to see the interiors of that $145M house.
I’m curious about the pre-nup — and whether the plastic surgery expenses that Costner is rather cruelly alluding to were/are related to the agreements in the pre-nup. As in: Christine got liposuction or whatever procedures to comply with Kevin’s demands in the pre-nup, and now he’s both putting her business out there and saying that it’s not a needed expense if she’s no longer married to him.
Can you imagine if the prenup has a clause in it i.e. Maintain weight 120-130lbs.
If he is that much of a turd, I hope she opens up all the dirt
“Kevin clips his toenails in bed.”
“He insists all the family dogs are groomed to look like him, tall and bland.”
“He wants me to call him “Cowboy” during sex.”
“Kevin has had hair plugs/wears lifts in his shoes”.
I want some fun dirt on Kevin, not just the boring money details.
We got those in the first divorce.
He has absolutely no respect for his soon-to-be ex-wife. Disgusting.
jferber,
It’s a Hollywood divorce, it is going to get nastier.
The longer they haggle, the more ugly details will come out, on both sides.
IRL divorces can be and often are disgusting in many cruel ways.
I’ve been thru it, once. Never again.
In a HW divorce arguing over $Millions, hearing all the “He said, She said, His Lawyer, Her Lawyer” etc. is pretty common. The tabloids used to run stories for weekly updates.
IIRC, Stallone had a lot of tabloid coverage on his original divorce and his divorce from Bridgette Neilsen was covered by the National Enquirer in depth, including his Mother Jackie giving her 2 cents pretty often.
Joan Collins, during several of her divorces, had tons of personal details come out.
It is the details of the luxury lifestyles, mansions, vacations, outrageous spending on items, etc.
it is almost like watching big Lotto winner go overboard with their winnings, it is so far out there from real life.
Well whatever he thinks of her now, she was the best he could do at the time he was looking 😉
If he wants to diss her, it’s sort of dis to his taste. This is the second time and all, and the first one had similar tones.
I’m not holding my breath to realize that the problem is him though.
JMO, but we all know that Kevin cheated constantly in his first marriage of 16 years + 3 kids.
After that divorce he was known to be constantly a dog, involved with plenty of younger females celebs for a few years, plenty of non celeb females all younger than him, the massage person on his honeymoon, and who knows what else he was up to.
So there is a mean and bitter part of me that if it turns out wife #2 has been involved with another man and cheating on Kevin, it would serve him right!
Btw, what was all that nonsense he put out initially that “she blindsided me, I’d take her back” and now his side is saying Both sides had been discussing divorce and she beat him to it and filed first. That is what surprised him. C’mon on, Kevin get your stories straight.
I’m glad to see new photos of Christine and 2/3 kids were at the airport getting out of town for a bit of a break, wonder where the #3 kid was?
IDK, I think she’s playing it all wrong. Supposedly, part of the issue was that he is away filming all the time and he’s never home. Based on their lifestyle and wealth, I am surprised that she didn’t just wait it out, he’s much older than her and she could just do whatever she wants, carry on affairs, go shopping, go on endless vacations, and just live separately and if he had a problem with it, HE could file for divorce and she could contest it unless he settled, if he didn’t have a problem with it, she would probably inherit a lot when he dies.
How did Kevin Costner get so much money?