Kevin Costner, or people speaking on his behalf, are hitting back at estranged wife Christine Baumgartner’s portrayal of him as an insensitive father who jumped on a 10-minute Zoom call from Las Vegas to tell their three children that their parents were getting a divorce.
Instead, an “insider” close to Costner told The Sun that the “Yellowstone” actor gathered his children together at a restaurant near the family’s $145 million home outside Santa Barbara and broke the news in person that a divorce was imminent.
This insider also rejected a report that the Costner was “blindsided” by the idea that his 18-year marriage was over. The insider told The Sun that Costner, 68, and Baumgartner, 49, had agreed to an “amicable” divorce, with the actor planning to serve papers himself. But he was “blindsided” when Baumgartner seized the initiative and filed first.
“Kevin sat his family down, told them he and their (mother) were getting a divorce and his lawyer was getting the paperwork drawn up,” a source told The Sun.
“He wanted everything to be peaceful for the sake of his kids and told Christine he didn’t want a messy divorce because he’d already been through one,” the source said, referring to the end of Costner’s first marriage in 1994 to college sweetheart Cindy Silva, which cost him a record-setting $80 million.
“Then first thing the next morning, boom, Christine sneak attacks him and serves him with her own set of divorce papers,” the source said. “Kevin was so shocked. Christine has since made him look terrible, and has continued to do so.”
Indeed, Baumgartner has garnered a mass of sympathetic headlines in an increasingly bitter, high-stakes Hollywood divorce. Leaks from anonymous sources and court filings have depicted Costner as a controlling multimillionaire and sometimes absentee father who’s trying to force her out of the family home, a 10-acre oceanside estate in Carpinteria.
In a court filing last week, Baumgartner also claimed that he ignored expert advice on how to tell their three children — Grace, 13, Hayes, 14, and Cayden, 16 — that their parents were getting a divorce. She said he told them in a quick, 10-minute phone call from Las Vegas, where he was reportedly working.
“The children’s welfare has always been my highest priority, and I was concerned they would find out about the divorce before Kevin and I could tell them. It was important for me that we tell the children in person and together,” Baumgartner said in the documents, obtained by People.
Baumgartner said she researched the best way to break the news, finding “several articles about the importance of talking to the children as a united front.” She believed that she and Costner would do it together.
But Baumgartner says Costner apparently had other ideas. He “disregarded my proposal to do what I felt was right based on research and my relationship with the children,” Baumgartner said, according to People. “Instead, he insisted that he had the right to tell them that we were getting divorced ‘first’ and tell them privately ‘without me present.’”
“I am still confused by his motivation to do this via a very short Zoom session, especially since he was planning on being home five days later,” Baumgartner said. “He also could have easily come home from Las Vegas to have the conversation in person.”
But as the source told The Sun, Costner did return home to Santa Barbara to break the news to their children in person.
The marital discord between Costner and Baumgartner became public news after she filed for divorce on May 1. The drama escalated when he went to court to demand that she leave the family home. The actor said she should honor the terms of a prenuptial agreement she signed before their 2004 wedding. The agreement, he said, states that she has 30 days to pack up her belongings and vacate the home in the event of a divorce. This property and two others are in Costner’s name.
In response, Baumgartner has depicted herself as the primary caregiver of their three children who made the Carpinteria estate “a home,” while Costner was away for months at a time, working on TV or film shoots.
According to court documents obtained by Us Weekly, Baumgartner said she understands that “at some point in the future, she and the children will have to move out of the family home.” But she said she can’t do that yet “because she does not have sufficient funding to secure housing that will ensure the children can maintain similar standards of living in the parties’ respective homes.”
Baumgartner, a handbag designer and former model, also said she currently has no income, which is why she has requested $248,000 a month in child support, Us Weekly reported.
Those documents also share other details of Costner’s finances and the family’s lavish spending. Us Weekly reported that the actor earned nearly $20 million in 2022– or some $1.5 million a month — from his various jobs as actor and director.
According the Baumgartner’s court filing, the family’s expenses include maintaining a private jet, as well as spending $830,000 on gifts and $238,000 on medical costs in 2022, Us Weekly reported. Baumgartner also spent $222,000 on her credit card, while the couple together dropped nearly $22,000 on spa services, $34,000 on golf and club dues and $84,000 on household help. Other expenses in 2022 included $64,000 on cleaning, $12,000 on hunting dues, more than $41,000 on food and nearly $13,000 on a personal trainer.
