This divorce is turning out to be nastier than we thought — and expensive!
If you hadn’t seen, Kevin Costner‘s wife of the past 18 years, Christine Baumgartner, filed for divorce in May, reportedly “out of the blue” as far as the Yellowstone star was concerned. Not only that, we’ve since heard Christine is going for the throat on this one.
Apparently she’s refusing to leave one of their three homes, despite what it says in her prenup. As we understand it, the home is in his name, so since she chose to end the marriage, she’s legally required to get out by May 30 — 30 days after she filed. (We’re now three weeks past that!) He apparently offered her over a million bucks down and $30k a month to find a new place, but she isn’t budging. (The current residence she’s in is a $145 million estate in Santa Barbara, so pretty much anything would be a downgrade.)
Kevin’s legal team claimed in a filing she was squatting in an attempt to extort “various financial demands” from him. Now we may have a better idea what he was talking about…
According to legal docs obtained by People, Christine is requesting an absolutely jaw-dropping $248,000 a month in child support.
Yeah, $248,000 *PER MONTH*. We’ll let you get a breath after reading that one.
To be clear, the couple share three children, all teenagers — Cayden, 16, Hayes, 14, and Grace, 13 — and this is “$248,000 total for all three children.” But a quarter million bucks per month?? We’re not talking about college funds or anything, that’s day-to-day living??
Yep. Christine says that gasp-worthy figure “is less than the amount needed to maintain the children in their accustomed lifestyle.” WTF is she talking about? Is she packing beluga caviar in their school lunches? Are they learning to drive with disposable Ferraris? They’re kids! How could they possibly need that much money??
You may be thinking about doctors and private school, etc. But forget it. Because Christine is asking separately for Kevin to pay 100% of the kids’ tuition, extracurricular activities, and healthcare expenses. The $248k is on top of that. A month, we will remind you. That’s how much Christine says she needs for the kids to “live at a standard somewhat approaching the standard that the children will be enjoying while in Kevin’s care.” BTW, she apparently does NOT ask for spousal support. Goodness knows how much that would have been…
Does she have a legal leg to stand on? Where could she possibly have come up with a number that large?
Well, in Friday’s request, which was filed in the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Barbara, Christine lists Kevin’s 2022 income at $19.5 million. His estimated net worth is about $250 mil. They haven’t been living cheap either — she mentions in her filing frequent family trips to Hawaii, Aspen, and the Caribbean, as well as commonly hiring chefs for parties. We mean, fair, but still… that’s so much!
According to sources speaking to TMZ, Kevin is already paying 100% of the kids’ expenses — and he’s already offered to pay an additional $38k a month on top of that. Expensive, but a LOT closer to what we’d expect, even for his level of wealth.
This whole thing must be giving Kevin some major PTSD. His last divorce, way back in the ’90s, cost him a reported $80 million. He didn’t have a prenup that time, but then again, Christine seems to be ignoring the prenup, so… a little bit of history repeating. Ouch.
What do YOU think of Christine’s demands??
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