The Daily Telegraph - Saturday
Kevin Costner, the $145m home and his jaw-dropping showbiz split
The star’s very public divorce features some eye-watering sums, even by Hollywood standards, says Laura Craik
If you’re of a certain vintage, you will remember – for how could you forget – a time in the early 1990s when every radio station in every kitchen, café and cab throughout the land would be belting out the husky tones of Bryan Adams, whose song
was number one in the UK charts for 16 consecutive weeks in 1991.
That the song sold over 15million copies worldwide and became one of the best-selling singles of all time may largely have been due to Adams, but some of the credit must go also to Kevin Costner, the actor and 1990s heartthrob who starred in a slew of box office hits such as Dances With Wolves (1990), (1991), The Bodyguard (1992) and, of course, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, the blockbuster 1991 film from which
was the lead single. It’s hard to overestimate Costner’s popularity during the first half of the 1990s, a period when no amount of that of many women, be they married to bankers, plumbers or Hollywood actors with a net worth of $250 million.
Costner has led the cast of hit Western series
for the past five years and is currently directing and starring in
a Western film series consisting of four separate movies, each close to three hours long.
So far, so unremarkable. But then things turned a bit dark. Rather than move out of the family’s Montecito home within 30 days of filing for divorce – as the couple’s pre-nuptial agreement required – Baumgartner stayed put. The pre-nup granted her a $1.45million payout as well as a year’s worth of mortgage payments to fund a home up to the value of $1million, but this cut no ice; she wouldn’t budge, forcing Costner to file legal documents asking a court to compel her to leave. He also told the court that he believed Baumgartner had remained in the home in a bid to persuade him to give into “various financial demands”, adding that he’d be amenable to some of them, including contributing to house rental and childcare, if it would allow her to depart the premises.
As mother of three of his children (the couple share two sons, Cayden Wyatt, 16, and Hayes Logan, 14, and a daughter, Grace Avery, 13; Costner also has four more children, three from his previous marriage to student sweetheart Cindy Silva, whom he divorced in 1994), Baumgartner is of course entitled to a generous payout. Quite how generous, however, is a continued matter of debate.
Earlier this month, Baumgartner’s lawyer, John Rydell, argued during a two-day evidentiary hearing that his client required Costner to stump up $161,000 a month, increased from the $129,000 payment she had been receiving. This, Rydell claimed, would allow Baumgartner (who finally moved out of the family home in July) to rent a home on the same road as Costner, where properties can cost $150,000 a month. At the start of the proceedings, she had initially asked for $248,000, arguing the sum was a “reasonable need”, as people are so often wont to do when they have been married to a rich person, and are looking at the prospect of becoming considerably poorer.
Those struggling with their mortgage payments should look away now. According to Costner’s accountant, Baumgartner spends an average of $18,000 per month on designer clothing alone, an eye-watering figure that would put a Kardashian to shame, if any of them ever wore anything that wasn’t #spon. She is also alleged to have spent $3,000 per month on beauty products and treatments.
But the most shocking amount is surely the $40,000 per month spend on “gifts and flowers”. What gifts? Gold bullion? How many floral arrangements does one person need? A casual $9,000 was also withdrawn from ATMs on a monthly basis, an amount that leads one to assume that the cashpoints of California are immeasurably less dangerous to use than those of Britain.
Baumgartner also argued that her current four-bedroom $40,000-a-month Montecito rental with pool and jacuzzi wasn’t good enough, complaining about the size of the guest bedroom and that her sons have to share a bathroom. Worse, her daughter Grace has to “share a bathroom with the house”. The indignity of having to toilet like a common serf, in the same bathroom as your own family, their visitors and staff. Let’s just pray the Costner children never have to experience Glastonbury.
And then there’s the beach access – or lack of. While access to a beach might be an annual privilege for the rest of us, for the Costner children, it’s a daily imperative. The Montecito rental, three miles from Costner’s old home, has no sea views and opens up on to a tree-lined lane, an idyllic description by anyone’s standards, but not Baumgartner’s. Without beach access, she argues, the children are unable to maintain their previous lifestyle. She cited Costner’s main residence, a
$145 million, 10-acre beachfront compound in Carpinteria, California, as evidence, detailing how it “was more like an experience than a home”, as well as reminding the judge of the 160,000-acre ranch Costner also owns in Aspen, Colorado. Obviously, no one ever knows what goes on in a marriage unless they are hiding for a long period of time under the marital bed. But while the trial is set to rumble on until November, the internet has reached a conclusive verdict, and has found almost unanimously in
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,
favour of Kevin. “She is teaching the children the wrong thing – that money means everything,” writes one user on Reddit. “It is sickening to see a legal defence claim it is in their DNA to live in luxury. Children live by example.” “I can’t even wrap my mind around those monthly expenses,” splutters another user. “$40k for flowers and gifts? I’m struggling to come up with money for fuel and heating this winter.”
But all (of Costner’s fortune) is not lost – at least, not to Baumgartner. A large chunk, however, is destined to swell the coffers of Laura Wasser, Hollywood’s leading, fiendishly expensive, divorce lawyer. Wasser is currently representing Britney Spears in her divorce from Sam Asghari, and has also represented Kim Kardashian, Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp. In arguing that Baumgartner is overstating her children’s requirements, Wasser has already managed to slash her child support to $63,000 a month, a sum Baumgartner branded “a complete joke”.
Many would argue that it’s Baumgartner and Costner who are the joke, the braggadocio of Baumgartner’s demands as tone deaf as Costner’s plaintive comment that “I have a lot to contemplate – what I have to do versus what I want to do”. In May – the same month as his divorce was filed – the actor quit with sources citing scheduling conflicts brought on by his “passion project”. Baumgartner’s fashion career, meanwhile, never seemed to take off: it’s fair to say her range of laptop cases, Cat Bag Couture, never caused Miuccia Prada to lose any sleep. During her last appearance in court, she stated she had intentions to go back to school and even “enter the workforce”.
In some ways, Baumgartner and Costner’s self-absorption seems so well matched that one wonders why they ever split up. But even if they both deserve each other, few would disagree that their children deserve better than two parents who are warring publicly rather than negotiating privately. Incensed at being painted as a “shallow, greedy gold digger”, Baumgartner has vowed that her fight is “far from over”. Their next sparring match is over court fees, with Baumgartner asking Costner to pay her $855,000 legal bill. His own bill, meanwhile, currently stands at $664,000. It’s a stark reminder that the people who benefit most from a divorce are the lawyers. It almost makes you glad to be poor.