Kevin Costner’s divorce battle with estranged wife Christine heats up, as the actor accuses her of requesting child-support payments that go far beyond the needs of their three children.
He stated this in a response to Christine’s declaration of order, filed on Wednesday in the Superior Court of California.
The Yellowstone actor called his ex’s request for $248,000 per month “highly inflated and unsubstantiated.”
“Guideline monthly child support based on Kevin’s gross cash flow available for support is $123,620,” the court document also stated.
Of their their three kids — Cayden, 16, Hayes, 14, and Grace, 13 — Costner, 68, said: “Providing the minor children with more than bare necessities does not require providing ludicrous extravagance designed to primarily benefit the supported parent.”
Christine, who is entitled to a settlement of $1.4 million under the terms of the couple’s prenup, filed her request for order earlier this month. The former handbag designer, 49, is asking for “$248,000 total for all three children” per month.
In her 16 June filing, Christine alleged the figure “is less than the amount needed to maintain the children in their accustomed lifestyle” and requested that Costner also pay 100% of private-school tuition, extracurricular activities/sports and health-care expenses for their sons and daughter. No spousal support was noted in her filing.
In his response Wednesday, Costner’s side claimed in the court document: “Christine 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 children do not use the services of private trainers, only Christine does.”
The Field of Dreams actor also alleged that “the plastic surgery expenses of $188,500/month belong to Christine – not the children.”
“Christine should know which credit-card expenses were for her and which were for the children, but not even a minimal effort is made to allocate them accurately,” the filing added.
As his divorce battle with Christine heats up, a source says in the new issue of PEOPLE that Costner “wants to hold on to as much as he can” as his ex seeks a slice of her estranged husband’s estimated $250 million fortune. (Her side claims Costner’s net worth is over $400 million.)
She argues that the money will help her set up a “suitable separate household” so she can move out of the Santa Barbara compound, worth an estimated $145 million, where she and the Dances with Wolves actor have lived since they married.
Explains a Christine source, “She wants Kevin to provide what they are used to.” Their extraordinary lifestyle, she said, included trips on private jets and visits to luxurious hotels.
In her filing, she detailed Kevin’s income (nearly $20 million for 2022), as well as the family’s expenses ($6.6 million, including $718,323 on credit cards and more than $800,000 in gifts).
The child support Christine seeks is more than six times the $38,000 a month Kevin has offered. The two-time Oscar winner — who, according to a source, didn’t want to get a divorce in the first place — submitted his own filing a week prior.
He alleged Christine, has refused to vacate their home since filing for divorce, despite a clause in their prenup which he claims requires her to do so within 30 days — a deadline that has since passed, given she filed on May 1. (Their date of separation was listed as April 11.)
Christine’s lawyers fired back in court documents, saying Costner “seeks to kick Christine and their three children out of the house that the children have lived in for their entire lives,” and that the “legal basis for Kevin’s request to kick his wife and children out of their home is all but nonexistent.”
A Costner source, however, told PEOPLE, “It’s disingenuous to bring the kids into this. This has nothing to do with the kids. The kids’ foundation is solid. This is all about Christine. Kevin has gone above and beyond in providing Christine the necessary means to find a suitable place for her to move.”
In a recent filing, her lawyers wrote, “Christine understands that at some point in the future, she and the children will have to move out of the family home. She cannot do so at this early stage of the case because she does not have sufficient funding to secure housing that will ensure the children can maintain similar standards of living in the parties’ respective homes.”
Costner and Christine are due in court July 5 for a case-management conference. Christine has said she’d move out of the home by Aug. 31 if she has a child support agreement in place after a 12 July hearing on the matter.
