At some point last week, Christine Baumgartner returned home from her Hawaiian vacation with one of Kevin Costner’s good friends and neighbors. Christine and Kevin’s kids were also on the vacation, and as soon as they returned to Carpinteria, Kevin took the kids to Aspen for a separate summer holiday. My guess is that Costner told Christine to be completely moved out of their Carpinteria house by the time he returned. That’s what the judge ordered too – Christine needs to be out by Monday, the end of July. On Friday and Saturday, U-Hauls and moving vans were seen at Costner’s estate and TMZ has all the photos. People Mag had an exclusive about where Christine is going now:
Kevin Costner’s estranged wife Christine is officially relocating. On Friday — a day after Christine, 49, was pictured running errands in Montecito, California — moving trucks were seen leaving the $145 million Santa Barbara compound that she has shared with Costner, 68, and their children during her 18-year marriage to the actor in photos obtained by Page Six and other outlets.
“Christine is following the legal advice per the prenup and is vacating the family house,” a source confirms to PEOPLE, adding that she “will stay at a smaller house on the property that’s been used as a staff quarter.”
“This is a temporary solution,” the insider adds. “She is still looking for another house. She is staying in the area to not disrupt the kids’ lives. They will be back at school in the fall with their friends. Christine is trying to keep everything as normal as possible. Her sole focus is the kids,” the source tells PEOPLE.
Christine “will stay at a smaller house on the property that’s been used as a staff quarter.” That’s something I’ve never understood about Costner’s insistence that Christine vacate every one of his homes – Kevin owns a huge amount of real estate, and he’s purchased other homes close to their $145 million mansion, homes which he uses as “staff quarters,” editing bays and offices. Why was the situation never “Christine should move out of the mansion in a reasonable amount of time and move into one of the smaller properties?” Don’t tell me – it’s because Kevin Costner is a vindictive a–hole who was hellbent on punishing her for leaving him. At least Christine gets to “stay” in one of those smaller homes now. Ten bucks says he’s making her pay rent.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.
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- Los Angeles, CA – Christine arrived by limousine at the Santa Barbara Courthouse and is met by a woman presumed to be her lawyer. Pictured: Christine Baumgartner BACKGRID USA 5 JULY 2023 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Los Angeles, CA – Christine arrived by limousine at the Santa Barbara Courthouse and is met by a woman presumed to be her lawyer. Pictured: Christine Baumgartner BACKGRID USA 5 JULY 2023 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- 94th Academy Awards (Oscars) – Red Carpet Arrivals Featuring: Christine Baumgartner, Kevin Costner Where: Los Angeles, California, United States When: 27 Mar 2022 Credit: Abby Grant/Cover Images
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- Vanity Fair Oscar Party held at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts Featuring: Kevin Costner and Christine Baumgartner Where: Los Angeles, California, United States When: 27 Mar 2022 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages/Cover Images **ONLY AVAILABLE FOR NORTH AMERICA**
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- USA Rights Only, Los Angeles, CA – 20220327- The 94th Academy Awards – Arrivals and Press Room -PICTURED: Christine Baumgartner and Kevin Costner -PHOTO by: Geisler/Dave Bedrosian/DDP/INSTARimages.com -ddp_16922393 This is an editorial, rights-managed image. Please contact Instar Images LLC for licensing fee and rights information at sales@instarimages.com or call +1 212 414 0207 This image may not be published in any way that is, or might be deemed to be, defamatory, libelous, pornographic, or obscene. Please consult our sales department for any clarification needed prior to publication and use. Instar Images LLC reserves the right to pursue unauthorized users of this material. If you are in violation of our intellectual property rights or copyright you may be liable for damages, loss of income, any profits you derive from the unauthorized use of this material and, where appropriate, the cost of collection and/or any statutory damages awarded Featuring: Christine Baumgartner and Kevin Costner Where: Los Angeles, California, United States When: 27 Mar 2022 Credit: Geisler/Dave Bedrosian/DDP/INSTA **USA Rights Only**
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- Vanity Fair Oscar Party at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts Featuring: Kevin Costner, Christine Baumgartner Where: Beverly Hills, California, United States When: 27 Mar 2022 Credit: Abby Grant/Cover Images
I actually don’t think he is the problem. I feel she went through with a divorce filing without any real idea of where she would go and what she could afford. Maybe her lawyers assured her of a slam dunk case and told her she would get a huge settlement. She can’t afford to get a home.
She had to rely solely on him for 20 years, he’s holding everything over her head despite her being the primary caregiver of their children, and he has multiple homes, including one literally next door to the family home, but she’s the problem?
No.
I agree with @ SandraNguyen. Christine seems to have not planned this filing very well and/or listened to her lawyer’s assurances. I am also concerned how little planning she may have done for the long picture. Yes, Costner is not the poster boy for an amicable divorce…but Christine dropped the ball a bit somewhere. At any rate, hopefully her moving into a “smaller property “shows some ability between the Kevin and Christine to communicate for the sake of the children.
“She HAD to rely on him..” did she though? It seems like she tried to set up several business ventures but they failed. No shade about the failings because a new business is tough but it certainly showed that she wasn’t forced into the SAHM role with no other possibility
In California marriage is a partnership of equals, if you do not feel that your parter is equal to you do not get married here.
Everything gained by either spouse during the marriage will be combined, 50% of that goes to each, the details can be negotiated, but that is the basic way it works.
So yeah, after all those years of marriage she will definitely be able to buy a home.
Are you saying California divorce law supercedes a pre-nup? Why would anyone bother to get a pre-nup if that were true?
That is the state law. There is none of this, “well I worked really hard and he didn’t stuff” Partership of equals, your contribution is equal to that of your partner in the eyes of the law.
A pre-nup supersedes that and is binding until challenged.
Pre-nup less than 7 years of marriage and no kids, highly UN-likely the pre-nup will be overruled when challenged
Pre-nup more than 7 years of marriage and or kids, highly likely the pre-nup will be overruled when challenged
Another interesting CA marriage fact, if you marry someone in California that owes California state tax (even from before you ever met them) California will take what they owe out of your state tax refund.
@Frozen Yogurt – thanks so much. Here in Massachusetts, it’s about “equitable division” rather than community property. There are dozens of issues to be considered by the judge when deciding what should be the percentage split – who cheated on whom, employability and skills of the respective spouses, their ages and health, if there was domestic abuse, etc. But assets that were acquired before the marriage are exempt. It can get very complicated.
I don’t think she’s “the problem” but I do think she either assumed or was told by her lawyer that the prenup would be overturned, she’d get a huge settlement, etc. and that’s not how it’s playing out.
Tbf to Christine, from the outside looking in I also would assume she has a decent chance for overturning the prenup or reaching a generous settlement: her lawyer should not be in the wrong on this. Unfortunately, the 88-year-old judge and Kevin understand each other too well.
I agree with you @ Becks1 and @ ML, but I think that at this point Christine should find a different attorney. She needs someone who is not afraid of this judge, Costner and someone who will put the screws to Costners jugular!! Christine needs a rottweiler and not a poodle right now!
Agree that Christine was given bad advice and didn’t plan well enough before she filed. But this is a very emotional situation for Christine. It could have possibly been that she came to the point that she simply couldn’t STAND living with him anymore. And given the actions of Costner that we have seen, it’s believable.
I agree with you @sandra Nguyen
At this point she’s the problem and that’s my opinion. We all have one on a celebrity gossip blog about people we don’t know :).
It’s her choice to leave him and file for divorce, but now you want to live in his properties too?
Being with him for so long I wish she had a plan in place. I feel the same way when it’s the other way around when men do it to women. G. Aubrey, K-Fed etc
K Costner is human too, he’s allowed to be hurt and want his ex out and to be petty . Same way she has every right to file for divorce and leave and be petty too. You can’t have it both ways. There is an ideal world and there is the real world, when emotions are involved things will always get messy.
@Xeni: I agree that one cannot have it both ways. Nevertheless, there is such a common value to civilized people called DECENCY, that ought to have precluded a man of honor from humiliating the woman who has carried his children.
Common decency is a non-mandatory, non-written rule that our western civilization boasts as a prerequisite for human interactions. Our politicians even lecture ancient civilizations like India, China, and Pakistan about their approach to human rights -all of which in the name of decency.
I wouldn’t mind Kevin Costner putting up a fight against his ex. But doing so, he is downgrading and demoting the mother of his children. Christine is a grown woman, but what does him tossing her out like garbage say about his respect for his own children? That’s where decency is lost.
It is my outdated stance that a woman who has risked her life several times to give birth to your children and raise them, deserves gratitude that should translate into some sort of maternal immunity against vexatious retaliatory actions.
@Xeni refreshingly rational perspective. There’s this pile on of hate for Costner (who I have no opinion on); maybe reserve this heat for Christine’s lawyer who should have advised her to secure some form of employment and living arrangements BEFORE signing the papers- that’s what many normies have to do.
She is staying on “shared” property because this is her lawyer’s advice. Once she moves off she concedes to the pre-nup, which something she is going to fight.
If she is smart, she will save a bit of that awfully large sum each month. Then, buy a modest home when her kids are gone. Get a job. Be productive. Most likely she will move on to another rich guy.
Didn’t he offer to buy her a house, though, at the very beginning of this? I thought he offered to pay all the kids’ education and expenses and also offered money towards a house, and she said no.
It was part of the prenup that she would get $1 million for a new home and that she would be out of his properties in 30 days.
In California, $1 million will by you a fixer upper, 1200 square foot house, if you’re lucky.
He offers her an additional 30k per month toward housing in addition to the million. She could have have afforded something decent nearby. And now it looks like she had a jump off with his his friend. I’m not sure why everyone is painting Costner as the bad guy here.
I live in California. Trust me, $1 million towards a house is nothing. Where I live, it might get you a 3 bedroom house in the suburbs with an hour commute to work. Where they live, she’d get a one bedroom condo, if that. She signed that prenup 19 years ago in a different real estate market. If he offered her $10 million towards a house, she’d probably take it and walk with no challenge. Even then, she’d have nothing close to what the kids were accustomed to living in.
I love California but the housing market is insane.
@Brandy Alexander — no way you can afford a decent house there for that kind of money. And why should she settle for a small 1 bedroom condo when she has 3 children? Costner’s behaviour has been nothing short of despicable and how do you know she’s having an affair? Never jump to conclusions. There’s something in legal issues like this called a “culminating incident” which refers to something so serious that it creates the circumstances leading to a sudden severing of a relationship, be it employee/employer or husband/wife. Something so egregious happened that she snapped and filed for divorce. We all know Costner was a real bastard to his first wife, and his true colours are showing with Christine. My guess is she found out he was having an affair — maybe one of several he’s had during the course of their marriage — and she’d had enough. Maybe those rumours of him having an affair with someone on the Yellowstone set which resulted in a pregnancy are true, but he did something that pushed her over the edge. I hope she negotiates a sh*tload of money.
He offered her $1m so she could buy her own house. In California this wouldn’t afford her much at all, and in the school zone for their kids she wouldn’t be able to buy anything. If she had accepted she’d have to uproot the kids to a totally different area, and I’m pretty sure her point is she’s their actual at-home parent and they should be able to be minimally disrupted considering how obscenely wealthy Costner is.
Honestly, that prenup should have been $1 million towards a house for each year they were married. $19 million could get her something very nice out there.
I’m sure those kids go to an exclusive private school and can live in any zone they want. Also guessing that he pays for that schooling and she doesn’t drive them back and forth every day (so they can be driven from any home). I really don’t think she is a SAHM like middle class women. I’m sure they have drivers and nannies and the kids aren’t little.
I wonder if the $1M was for the whole house or towards the down payment because those are 2 completely different financial scenarios. If it was toward the down payment, it may explain why he’s willing to give her money every month towards a new place in addition to the $1M.
ITA. The whole divorce is perplexing and contentious.
He’s abiding by the prenuptial agreement. After all those years and 3 kids I hope she has a lawyer who can overturn it.
She’s being financially abused by him. Makes you wonder what living with him was like. Reminds me of how Harry and Meghan were financially abused by the RF. It’s a form of control and a way to punish them. She’ll be OK in the end I’m sure just as H&M are OK.
The bits that have slipped out during all of this are quite revealing, he clearly had full control over her spending throughout their marriage. It reads as thought she was an employee there to provide him with children and raise them for him.
All while he benefited from Christine’s devotion to him, his children and his career. IF Costner had not had the full support of Christine, his career and his children would have not been as successful as they are at this point of his life.
@ Heather, oh, Costner is certainly financially abusing her but it is not equivalent to what H&M had been subjected to. This is a marriage between a man and a woman, the Crown is on a completely different level than a marriage, but I get your point.
He did not have control over her. In most marriages, you discuss large purchases, credit card spending. She is so high maintenance. Who spends over$100,000 on a car and does not discuss with spouse? She is at fault too. It takes two for a marriage to end. She had a great life. She will be taken care of until she dies. Stop making it all his fault. We have no clue what happened. Why did she need to retain a criminal defense attorney in LA? And, charge it to him? There is so much we will never know.
ITA, Annie. You made good points to consider.
The judge overseeing the divorce is an 88 year old white man. He was born in 1935! Here is a link to his bio: https://www.sbcourts.org/gi/jo/anderle
Is it any wonder he seems to favor Kevin Costner’s side in the divorce? I don’t think Christine Baumgartner was ever going to get a fair deal with this judge.
So this reminds me of a book I read years ago I found in a marked down bin at a estate sale. It was the story of Roxanne Pulitzer. She had a pre-nup with Herbert “Peter” Putlizer. She ended up with only the pre-nup which was garbage for the most part. She became friends with the wife of one of the Kimberly-Clark heirs who encouraged her to buy things of value. When she asked why the woman said “I’m not the first wife & I won’t be the last wife so when I leave I will have money to live on”. When that divorce came about she got 1 million but she had over 18 million in jewelry that she had “received or purchased” during the marriage which was considered personal property. The scene on in the First Sex and the city movie was loosely based on her as she sold all the jewelry for a whopping 78 million at sale. I think Ellen Barkin did the same when she divorced the Revlon man.
I’m not saying that this should be done but I believe Kevin was a controlling jerk and she should have known since he was bitter about his first divorce he couldn’t be trusted to do “the right thing”. I am surprised her pre-nup didn’t have provisions for child(ren) and marriage over 10 years, which in CA is considered a marriage of “significant time”. I’m guessing his lawyers wrote the pre-nup
I think he is either toxic because she left him or bitter because because she cheated on him ?
That’s my guess 🤷♀️
He was toxic long before she ever came into his life. He was horrible to his first wife, philandered constantly then tried to screw her over financially when they divorced. He’s just not a good person, period. And no, he’s not “bitter because she cheated on him”, he’s been the one doing the cheating all along.
I’m firmly in camp Kevin is an ass but I am not blaming the outcome of this on her lack of preparation or attorneys. There’s a good chance they knew the pre-nip standing was a possible outcome and asked for what they asked for hoping otherwise. Going to trial is a gamble.
There comes a point in a controlling relationship when the cost to stay is more than anything you give up by leaving.
When my kids are with me they live in a smaller house, ride around in an average car, do basic things. Nothing at all like the extravagant life my ex lives but everyone is much happier under our roof.
Why was the situation never “Christine should move out of the mansion in a reasonable amount of time and move into one of the smaller properties?”
The situation was never that because as reported here on CB, Christine’s initial intention was to remain in the house, in violation of the prenup, until they came to a child support agreement. I’m not sure whether that was her idea or her lawyers, but they miscalculated the patience that the court and opposing party would have with them. I think they truly thought that PR pressure would soften Costner’s sides negotiation tactics, but at his age and the point of her career he is in, I doubt he even cares. The man just walked from one of the biggest shows on television. I doubt he cares what anyone thinks. That child support agreement isn’t going to be done anytime soon because both sides are going to go for blood.
I know many of y’all want to paint Kevin as the worst man alive and Christine as the poor victimized, powerless wife…but she seems to have brought all of this on herself by listening to the crap advice of a crap lawyer….
Kevin…is that you?
No, what brought all this on is that Kevin is a crap husband who misled her into accepting a bad pre-nup.
She had her own lawyer when accepting this prenup.
disgusting. costner is a despicable man. his children will hate him.
Nah, they won’t. Kids love their parents. It takes a lot for a child to stop loving a parent. I’m sure he is treating them ok and taking care of their needs.
Right on. Costner’s behavior is indefensible.
Have you read the actual pre-nup? She gets $100,000 on their wedding day and another $100,000 on the first anniversary. $200,000 to purchase a home, 1 year of tax & insurance payments, $30,000 per month for property rental which is tied to his child support obligation and $10,000 for moving costs. If she challenges the pre-nup, she forfeits “any and all rights to receive any payment, property, or interest pursuant to the agreement “. This is “low ball” even for 2004. Where was her representation when this agreement was drawn up? Or was she “so in love” that she just trusted him. At least there’s temp child support in place for the kids. But Costner’s net worth is $250,000,000. Ten mil wouldn’t kill him. I get it. His male ego is bruised. But even if she was the worst b*tch in the world, be a little magnanimous. His kids are watching.
It was a sh*tty prenup, but also Kevin’s career and wealth was nowhere near today’s in 2004. He’d slipped off the radar after Aquaworld or whatever. The biggest chunk of his current networth comes from Yellowstone. So I think this is valid good reason for challenging the prenup, and she’s in the right of dping so. I concur her lawyers are no good, but she seems to have enter this divorce quest without preparations. See everybody says he was a regular b*stard, but she didn’t seem to have been ruminating her exit long enough for having a plan. Her forensic accounts show he was letting her spilf his money, so I don’t see why she wasn’t at least quietly stashing unsuspicious valuables (car, jewellery, art), or trying to build up a money-scheme as influencer. I doubt there was no way for her to cash in being his wife. She seems to have made an impromptu decision and hired bad lawyers, who gave her advice inappropiate for dealing with the man she’s fighting. He walked away from a money pit for no apparent reason other than focusing on this divorce, that might have told her something in terms of strategizing.
I doubt his decision to walk away from Yellowstone had anything to do with focusing on the divorce. This decision he made much earlier.
Fair points, Aurora.
Seems to me that she had a plan, buying a car, accumulating escape cash, but something or someone forced her hand and she filed earlier than she expected and wasn’t quite ready for the transition. She needs better advise. Time for a new legal team?
Definitely, Libra. As the details trickle out it becomes clearer and clearer that she had to act fast, for whatever reason. And I don’t get the impression that she has any real financial resources at her disposal, either. This was a desperate act of self-preservation.
She had to act fast because Costner was going to file for divorce. Remember those stories in the DM that stated Costner was going to file but Christine beat him to it?
I think she filed to prevent him filing first. But I agree with other CBers, she needs a better legal defense. My mother, a retired bankruptcy lawyer, would have never let a client sign that pre-nup. That pre-nup is going to haunt Christine.
This actually sounds like a good solution to me. The kids get to stay in their main home, both parents are there on the property but don’t really have to interact. It seems like a workable solution until everything is settled and/or she finds a new home.