Kevin Costner‘s estranged wife is drowning in legal bills, which is why she says she requested $855,000 from the actor.
In new court documents obtained by ET, Christine Baumgartner says she currently owes $314,113 “for past fees and costs.” If she’s granted the $855,000 she’s already requested from the Yellowstone star, Baumgartner says she’ll use the remaining $541,887 to cover future legal bills as their divorce case continues to drag on.
In the same court documents, filed Thursday in Santa Barbara Court, Bumgartner accuses Costner of “once again [resorting] to insults and inflammatory language” and completely ignoring “the Family Code mandate that litigation must be carried out on a level playing field with respect to attorney’s fees and costs.”
Baumgartner further states that “in attacking the reasonableness” of her fees, “Kevin’s lawyers provide no updated information about the fees and costs that Kevin has devoted to this case. Even though Kevin claimed at his deposition that he had no idea how much he was spending, we learned through documents that he incurred $644,000 in fees and costs through the end of July. He was outspending Christine 2:1, even though she is the ‘out spouse.'”
The 49-year-old goes on to state in court documents that her team estimates Costner’s “total fees and costs through the end of the child support hearing were in excess of $850,000,” but Costner has provided “ZERO information as to how much Kevin has spent on fees and costs since August 1st, or how much they have budgeted” for the upcoming trial.
“If there is to be any semblance of a level playing field in this case,” Baumgartner’s court documents state, “Kevin should be ordered by the court to pay Christine’s past and future fees in a lump sum no later than September 21, 2023.”
As ET previously reported, the Dances with Wolves star slammed Baumgartner’s $855,000 request as “outrageous” and “nonsensical.” He stated that his estranged wife “fails to provide the court with any evidence that 1,106 hours of attorney time at $800 per hour is necessary to prepare” for this upcoming trial.
But Bumgartner, whose child support payments were drastically reduced earlier this month, is clarifying in her most recent court documents that she won’t be spending the entire $855,000 on the upcoming trial.
“They wrongly claim the $855,000 Christine requests is ‘just to prepare for the November/December bifurcated trial,’ when in fact only a portion of the fees requested are for that purpose,” the court documents state.
The subject of who should cover their attorney’s fees has been a point of contention for some time now.
A hearing on the matter is set for Wednesday in Santa Barbara court.
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