Kevin Costner will pay his ex-wife $63,000 in child support, a quarter of what she demanded
The next battle will take place in November and address the prenuptial agreement and Christine Baumgartner’s request for spousal support
In June, Christine Baumgartner, 49, demanded $160,000 a month in child support following her divorce from actor Kevin Costner. However, on Friday, a judge in Santa Barbara, a city north of Los Angeles, ruled that the Costner, 64, must pay $63,000 each month for their three children — a quarter of what Baumgartner had demanded and less than half the $129,000 she currently gets.
The decision brings to an end a two-day trial that began on Thursday. Baumgartner and Costner were married for 18 years and have three children: Cayden, 16, Hayes, 14, and Grace, 13. The designer initially demanded $175,000 per month in child support, before lowering the figure to $161,592. The designer’s lawyer stated that these stratospheric figures are being sought because a luxurious life is “in the DNA” of the children, and listed the number of sports they practice and the importance of the family’s horses and their homes.
“We have created a community,” Baumgartner said, explaining that her children are “very connected to the ocean, it’s their home. Here we have created everything you can dream of.”
However, Costner claimed his ex-wife’s child support request was “highly inflated and unsubstantiated,” arguing that she “allocates 60% of expenses such as private trainer, unallocated credit-card expenses, and her plastic surgery to the minor children without any explanation or basis.” The actor said that his ex-wife spent $188,500 a month on plastic surgery expenses.
In the hearing on Friday, where according to the media present, the two avoided eye contact, the Bodyguard star took to the stand to talk about the end of his marriage: “Somehow in this unusual world we didn’t make it and I’m sorry.”
According to the Daily Mail, Christine Costner told the court about their luxury lifestyle, which included monthly expenses of $40,000 on flowers and gifts, and decadent Christmas parties in which 40 tons of snow were sent to Santa Barbara. Now, she said, she has had to borrow money from friends to pay her mother’s mortgage, whom she helps financially, and also from her brother, who gave her $80,000 to pay for the move to her new house.
Costner’s lawyer, the famous Laura Wasser, pointed out that the designer received $1.5 million in the prenup, and that the family “does not live like movie stars” — Costner no longer owns his private jet and that their children do not wear designer clothes. “Even in LA, I have never seen a child support request this high,” said Wasser.
It appears that Wasser and Costner have won the first round. The second round will come in November over the prenuptial agreement and Baumgartner’s request for spousal support.
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