Kevin Costner's Ex-Wife Ordered to Pay His Legal Bills After Her Attempt to Increase $129,755 Monthly Child Support Backfires
After requesting a $31,837 increase in monthly child support payments from estranged husband Kevin Costner, Christine Baumgartner instead had her current payments substantially cut last Friday during a courtroom hearing in Santa Barbara, California.
The handbag designer was receiving $129,755 per month from the actor when she asked for a monthly increase to $161,592, according to Fox News.
UPDATE: Kevin Costner’s ex Christine Baumgartner calls $129,000 monthly child support “insufficient”
She says Kevin needs to pay more child support “so that the children can go on comparable vacations when they are with her. This is true even if the child support payments also… pic.twitter.com/RghHI6ExTr
— Daily Loud (@DailyLoud) August 31, 2023
Instead, Judge Thomas Anderle decreased her six-figure monthly payments to $63,209.
In addition, during a Wednesday hearing, the judge denied her Aug. 21 request to have Costner pay her almost $9,000 in attorney’s fees.
He responded by ordering her to pay Costner $14,237.50 in attorney’s fees that Costner had requested.
Furthermore, he refused to order Costner to hand over financial documents that Baumgartner had requested.
Indeed, her request could arguably not have gone much worse, with the judge pointedly saying that he “spent a lot of time trying to capture exactly what it is you didn’t have.”
The current situation is likely very different from what she expected back in June, when she was asking for $248,000 in monthly child support payments, according to court documents obtained by People Magazine.
At the time, she commented that even that larger figure was “less than the amount needed to maintain the children in their accustomed lifestyle.”
That filing listed their family expenses at $6,645,285 per year, not including taxes.
Expenses included $2 million per year just in upkeep on their various homes.
Costner and Baumgartner share three children: Cayden, 16, Hayes, 14, and Grace, 13.
They have been married for 19 years, since September 2004, per Us Weekly.
The two met on a golf course as Costner was readying himself for a role in the 1996 film “Tin Cup.”
At the time, Costner had been divorced from his wife, Cindy, for two years.
Costner also has another child from a relationship with Bridget Rooney.
Baumgartner filed for divorce in May. However, court documents show that the couple separated one month prior to the filing.
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