There’s a lot of drama surrounding Kevin Costner and his ex-wife Christine Baumgartner nowadays. Very few saw their divorce coming, especially after the extravagant wedding the pair enjoyed years ago that cemented their relationship. The two started dating in 1998 but didn’t get married until six years later in September 2004. Costner, however, made sure that the ceremony was worth the wait. He married Baumgartner on his 160-acre ranch in Aspen, Colorado, which he titled The Dunbar. Additionally, the sprawling mansion is surrounded by several guest houses, a baseball field, fishing lakes, and a golf range, earning the ranch’s nickname as a mini-town.
Costner made his lavish abode even more so for his and Baumgartner’s wedding. Its seemingly endless terrain and multiple guest houses made it easy to accommodate the ceremony’s 300-plus guests. Apart from loved ones, many familiar faces made up the event’s attendees, including Costner’s longtime friends Bruce Willis and Don Johnson. Honoring the cowboy theme of the wedding, Costner arrived at his ranch in a wagon. Meanwhile, it was noted that Baumgartner made her entrance in her ex-husband’s iconic green Chevy. But with so much to do around the property, the ceremony couldn’t end after one night. Instead, the party lasted three days before Costner and Baumgartner rode off into the sunset. In that time, the couple and their guests indulged in many activities like softball barbecues. “We just try to make it like recess, you know, like in the fifth grade so it could be fun for everyone,” Costner told Extra of the wedding.
Kevin Costner feared he and Christine Baumgartner wouldn’t be able to go the distance
After Kevin Costner’s first marriage ended, the “Yellowstone” actor hoped history wouldn’t repeat itself with Baumgartner. For a while, it seemed that it wouldn’t. Whereas Costner’s first marriage with Cindy Silva ended after 16 years, his marriage with Baumgartner lasted for 19. The pair both put out the usual divorce language of “irreconcilable differences” as the source of their divorce, although there were rumors that affairs plagued Costner and Baumgartner’s marriage for quite some time. However, Costner shared that, in the back of his mind, he was always afraid this day would come. “That was my fear and so I’m kind of living with that right now. But that’s life,” Costner said in an interview with People.
Similarly to his previous divorce, Costner confided that his and Baumgartner’s children helped him go through the painful separation process. “It’s really about the children, You just do it. You just keep talking, you keep coaching [the kids], you keep interested in what they’re interested in,” Costner said. “It was something I had to think about 20 years ago, when I agreed to be married [again].” Costner has seven children in total. Three of them are from his relationship with Baumgartner, and he shares three other older children with Silva. Furthermore, he has one other child from his relationship with ex-girlfriend Bridget Rooney.
In hindsight, Costner also seemed to shoulder some of the blame himself for his divorce. He was busy at the time with a career that was reaching new heights, which made his and Baumgartner’s break-up even more difficult to deal with. “So many things were in motion,” Costner said. “I had this money out there, these movies were committed, 300 or 400 people working on it. There was just nothing I could do.”
