Kevin Costner wins bitter child support divorce battle with wife Christine Baumgartner
Kit Roberts
Featured Image Credit: Frazer Harrison/David Livingston/Getty Images
Kevin Costner and Christine Baumgartner have reached a court settlement around child support.
The pair, who had been together for 18 years, filed for divorce back in May, and have been locked in legal battles since. Now, a judge has slashed the child support that Baumgartner will receive to $63,000 per month.
This is less than half of the $129,000 she had previously been receiving monthly, and almost $100,000 less than the $161,000 she had been seeking in court.
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The judgment was made following two days of hearings, in which both parties laid out what they believed to be a fair sum. Costner said that there had been 'no winners' in the legal wrangling.
He told Fox News Digital: "You know, when you have a life that long with somebody, there is no winner...and it's this big, crazy thing called life and how it unravels so quickly,' he told Fox News Digital.
"One minute you feel like you're on top of the world, and then you realize how, you know, how vulnerable you are."
The star of Robin Hood Prince of Thieves and Man of Steel had taken to the stand in the final stages of the hearing, and claimed that he didn't want an 'inflated' level of child support to mean that he was forced to work on project he didn't want to do.
He told the court: "I want to help but the thought of having things inflated to the point I can't do what I want to do…
"Somehow in this unusual world, we didn't make it and for that, I'm sorry."
Costner said: "She's an incredible mom. We will figure it out and we'll share. We just got to kind of convalesce right now."
Baumgartner's legal team had previously scored a victory of their own when they managed to get child support set temporarily at $129,000 a month.
However, Judge Thomas Anderle decided that her subsequent request for $169,000 per month was above what the couple's children would 'reasonably need'.
Baumgartner's team had argued that her $40,000 a month property was 'not comparable' to Costner's $73m beachside home. They said that the children should spend time at the $150,000 a month beachside home she was hoping to rent once the lease was up.
Their claims included that as Baumgartner's property does not have an ocean view, it represents a fall in the standard of living from the family home.
The pair had previously signed a prenuptial agreement agreeing to a payment of $1.5 million to Baumgartner, which she has already received.
A further hearing has been set for November.