Kevin Costner is a well-known American actor, director, musician, and producer. The actor bagged three Golden Globes and two Academy Awards. Recently, the Yellowstone actor split up with his wife, Christine Baumgartner. In the ongoing divorce dispute between the actor Kevin and his estranged wife, Tuesday’s ruling resulted in difficulties in the child support agreement. The judge’s decision requires Kevin to make a substantial monthly payout of ‘129,755 USD.
This amount surpassed the initial offer made by the Emmy Awardee to his soon-to-be ex-wife. Christine, who is 49 years old, will move out of the actor’s mansion by the end of this month. The actor’s divorce created another level of drama, the tenure, based on their pre-nuptial contract.
One of the persons must have to vacate the shared property within 30 days of the divorce filing. After filing for divorce, the actor’s wife violated the deadline and now faces a new deadline. However, July 12th court provided some clarity about this, yet the current status remained unclear.
The couple has three children together Cayden, 16 years old; Hayed, 14 years old and Grace, 13 years old their healthcare cost would be shared equally between the couple as per the new judgment. Also, their education at high-end private school fees and extracurricular expenses will be split accordingly. This has disappointed Christine, and she requested Kevin to manage these whole expenses.
Also Read: Kevin Costner Unexpected Exit from Yellowstone: Creator Taylor Sheridan Shows Disappointment
Kevin Costner Divorce: Everything You Need To Know
Yet the present child support amount is not conclusive, and both estranged couples have an opportunity to challenge it in subsequent hearings. According to the notes, such figures typically undergoes minimal changes from the early determination.
The judge mandated the extra cost of 200,000 USD as Christine’s attorney charges, along with the forensic costs of 100,000 USD. Payments are required on the first day of every month, and the actor will receive the credits for any payments which are made from the beginning of this month. This fee is raised as a financial challenge to Kevin.
Laura Wasser is currently handling Kevin’s divorce case. The attorney is famous for inspiring Laura Dern’s role in “Marriage Story,” which is a critically acclaimed movie helmed by Noah Baumbach. Even Laura accolades Academy Award for best supporting actress.
Wasser has ardently defended the couple’s pre-nuptial contract in court. Unless it is a final validation, and this will not be decided until the next hearing in November. Christine is expected to persist in continuing the legitimacy of the ruling.
If the pre-nuptial is upheld, then Christine has to return 1.5 million USD to Kevin, which was previously paid and also includes his attorney’s fees. On the other note, Christine expressed her hesitation to vacate her mansion without any stable place, especially for the sake of her children.
The judge’s preliminary ruling and judge authorities suggested that he might deem the rest of the prenup agreement valid as per the reports that Kevin Costner has deposited one million USD to his ex-wife’s account as his obligation to relocate her according to the agreement.
Although, Christine hasn’t taken the money, as she was afraid that might cause her opportunity to contest the validation of the pre-nuptial. Despite Kevin also offered her 30,000 USD to 50,000 USD a month, which was less amount as considered to his monthly revenue and the expenses of his family before their divorce.
If we talk about the earnings of the actor, the Academy winner earned 19 million USD last year, which can be split as he earned 1.6 million USD as his monthly income. It also meant that Costner was offered his children’s main caregiver 2% of his monthly gross revenue, which might not be considered a good take.
Wasser also defended that while Costner might argue that “he was offered to pay his wife 30,000 USD per month for his children’s expense and child support as well. It wasn’t clear what all included. It would be related to lifestyle or any other related”.
She further continued that “courts don’t look at child support requests in a vacuum or in isolation; they see how much the family spent on their daily expenses before divorce and household living. The monthly expenses of their children, and that includes real estate that early parent can avail it too”.
“The judge believed Cristine’s requests related to the need of the Children in the Costner case, and the judgment might have given some weight to the actor’s forensic expert testimony, which is why the court will not provide Christine 100% of her monthly request.”
At last, the court went Christine’s way for the sake of the child support figure overall because it is so much higher than the estimated Costner’s initially offered to Christine. “If the two parties were following sage legal advice, it would now recommend to take this very public feud private and have the other issues resolved.”
“The mansion is to be vacated by Christine as ruled by the court, and Kevin ‘Costner must have to pay 129,755 USD each month’. The other postnup agreement will be accounted for the rest, and the monthly child support amount is likely to be permanent rather than temporary with minimum chance of being changed.”
Overall, the divorce drama of Costner with an estranged wife looks like a never-ending saga. While Christine, who filed for divorce at first in May, was initially requested to the court for 248,000 USD for each month by Kevin as child support. Whereas the actor filed a different petition and asked his ex-wife to pay 99,200 USD to maintain his legal fees charges.
Also Read: Kevin Costner Divorces Christine Baumgartner After 19 Years of Marriage
