When lawyer Jacqueline Misho sent an email earlier this month, she ended it with an unequivocal warning to her opponent.
“It is not a good idea to bite the hand that feeds,” she said brusquely, departing abruptly from her profession’s usual legalese.
To who, you might wonder, is the fearsome Ms Misho issuing such an extraordinarily blunt admonition?
The answer is to Christine Baumgartner, the estranged 49-year-old wife of Hollywood superstar Kevin Costner, whom Ms Misho represents and is the ‘hand that feeds’ in this starkly phrased warning.
So what provoked such an unsubtle caution to Christine?
Fascinatingly, it seems that 68-year-old Costner’s sudden split in May is already shaping up to be one of Hollywood’s most acrimonious — and petty — divorces.
Court documents obtained exclusively by the Mail show a fierce war is being waged between the couple over everything from Christine allegedly spending $100,000 of child support money from Costner on plastic surgery, to who gets ownership of the saucepans and the dog’s bed.
Indeed, these documents make plain how dramatic — and speedy — this turn of events is, especially considering that just a few weeks ago Costner was making it rather clear that he was being forced into splitting from Christine, with whom he has three children.
As his spokesman then put it in a pointed statement released to confirm Christine had filed for divorce four days earlier: “It is with great sadness that circumstances beyond his control have transpired which have resulted in Mr Costner having to participate in a dissolution of marriage action.”
Fast forward to today, and Hollywood is agog at the spectacle of an A-lister with a fortune reputed to be in the region of $400 million slugging it out over kitchen equipment.
It seems Costner’s lawyer’s blunt email was prompted by a list of items Christine had hoped to remove from the $145 million beachfront property in Santa Barbara that had served as the couple’s marital home.
As well as the pots and pans and dog bed, she asked for permission to remove a blue-and-white beach umbrella, a juicer and an exercise bike.
Reasonable enough, you might think, but not for Costner. As his lawyer makes clear, while he had no objection to her removing her toiletries, handbags, clothing, jewellery and ‘some Christmas decorations’, any other item must be specifically agreed in writing.
Anyone who has ever had the misfortune to go through a rancorous separation will know that battle lines can be drawn over the smallest things.
Nonetheless, as one Hollywood source told the Mail yesterday, Costner’s divorce appears to be in a whole different league.
“You have a star worth many millions arguing with his wife about whether she can take a salad spinner from the kitchen without agreement in writing,’ they said. ‘It’s petty beyond belief.”
As for Costner behaving in such a way, one industry insider had this take: “Kevin has long had a reputation for being a tough negotiator in his professional life,” they told the Mail this week. “It’s raising eyebrows that it appears he has the same approach in his personal life, too.”
He overcame his wobbles, and he and Christine married at Costner’s 165-acre Colorado ranch in September 2004 in front of 300 guests. Their three children followed in quick succession.
In the years since, the couple’s relationship had appeared to go from strength to strength.
“Our partnership has really come into focus,” Costner said in a 2020 interview during which he claimed lockdown had made their relationship stronger.
One can only wonder then, what the “irreconcilable differences” Christine is referring to in her divorce petition.
Representatives for Costner have robustly refuted rumours of infidelity as “defamatory”, and also dismissed suggestions the star’s filming schedule had meant long periods away from home which had put the couple under strain.
Either way, divorce papers make clear that this once loving A-list couple have been reduced to squabbling about the list of items Christine had requested be moved from the family home — as well as the dog bed, pots, pans and beach umbrella, she also asked for “two swivel chairs”, and some “plates and bowls”, offering to photograph the items she desired.
“Hopelessly vague and ambitious,” sniffed Costner’s counsel.
Given this level of disagreement, it’s unsurprising to hear that the two cannot reach concord on more fundamental issues, either.
The court documents seen by the Mail lay bare the hostility in which the couple’s sudden separation after 19 years of marriage is mired.
In one salvo, as well as accusing his estranged wife of spending her child support money on plastic surgery — a claim her lawyers have not yet responded to — Costner says she has been withdrawing cash on credit cards that belonged to their domestic staff to build up a cash reserve ahead of filing for divorce.
In return, she has accused the star of refusing to sufficiently support the couple’s three children — Cayden, 16, Hayes, 14, and 13-year-old Grace — as well as trying to conceal the true extent of his fortune.
“Although we have not done formal discovery, we believe that Mr Costner’s net worth is in excess of $400 million (£309 million) and his recent reported income is in excess of $19 million (£15 million) a year,” her lawyers wrote in one letter earlier this month, suggesting that his Aspen ranch was valued at $200 million alone.
Little wonder, perhaps, then that after the initial expression of sadness at the split, Costner came out fighting.
As well as lawyer Jacqueline Misho, in a clear sign he intended to play hardball he hired celebrity divorce lawyer Laura Wasser who has represented Angelina Jolie, Johnny Depp and Kim Kardashian and is known as “Disso queen” for her role in the dissolution of high-profile marriages.
Just four months earlier, all had appeared well: in January, Costner released a video on Instagram apologising for the fact, due to flooding, he and Christine would be no-shows at the month’s Golden Globes ceremony, at which he had received a best actor nomination for his role as rancher John Dutton in the hit western drama series Yellowstone.
“Nobody’s sadder than us that we can’t be there,” he said. “Chris had a beautiful dress. I was looking forward to walking down the red carpet with her.’ Instead, he declared, his wife had organised a family TV viewing party, complete with balloons.
Amid this touching tribute, few would have guessed anything was amiss in a marriage that was seen as one of the stronger unions in showbusiness. Together since 1998 after first meeting on a golf course, the couple briefly separated in 2002 over Costner’s reluctance to have more children.
Already a father of four — he has three children, Annie, 39, Lily, 36, and 35-year-old Joe from first wife Cindy Silva, as well as a son named Liam, 26, from a brief relationship with actress Bridget Rooney — Costner subsequently confessed that his age had left him worried he could not “be an effective father”.
Even sharing news of their split with their children became a matter of contention, according to the court papers.
The three Costner children were ultimately told of the parental split in a Zoom call made by their father from Las Vegas, a decision Christine describes as “perplexing”. For his part, Costner insists he was reduced to the measure after his wife consistently stalled over how they would present the news of their split.
Costner has also made it clear from the outset that he expected his ex to succumb to the terms of the couple’s pre-nuptial agreement, which gives her 30 days from the start of divorce proceedings to leave the marital home.
“Christine wanted this divorce. She knew about the provision in the pre-marital agreement requiring her to vacate — she just chose to ignore it,” his lawyers wrote in one letter.
Not so, replies his wife, pointing out that while she was perfectly prepared to vacate the shared mansion, she needed to have guaranteed financial security prior to doing so.
Accusing her ex of effectively trying to “evict” her and their three children, she said she merely had their best interests at heart.
“I have our three children to think about . . . My goal has been, and continues to be, maintaining as much stability for our children as possible,” she wrote.
Christine suggests that Costner agreed a monthly payment of $248,000 dollars (£192,000) — an amount he labelled “astonishing”, claiming he could only afford it by “liquidating assets”.
Calling her request “highly inflated and unsubstantiated”, he counter-offered $51,940, and accused her of using her child support to fund her own vanity spending.
“Christine allocates 60 per cent of expenses such as private trainer, unallocated credit-card expenses, and her plastic surgery to the minor children without any explanation or basis,” he wrote in one court document this month.
Forward and backward the court applications go, all of them containing eye-popping sums and claims — among them Costner’s lawyers statement that while their client earned $19,517,064 (£15 million) last year he expects to earn “substantially less” this year because his contract with Yellowstone was coming to an end.
In another court filing, Costner suggests that his wife had drawn out cash prior to their separation to purchase, among other things, a new top-of-the-range car.
“Thus, it appears that Christine had been planning her exit long before she told Costner in April 2023,” one of the court filings suggests. “Petitioner has shown a disturbing propensity in the last several months … to take Respondent’s property without his knowledge or consent.”
Whether or not that relates to the dog bed and saucepans, nobody knows, but Costner is not giving up his kitchen equipment without a fight.
Meanwhile, the presiding judge — despite making it clear he believed Christine’s proposal to photograph her items was “not unreasonable” — has suggested that by way of compromise both sides might try to “promptly” resolve this matter before it goes to trial. He also ruled Costner pay monthly support of $129,000.
Given the extent of the schism between the pair, it seems unlikely that agreement over their once shared possessions is due any time soon — although in an intriguing twist, it emerged that the former Mr and Mrs Costner are set to put on a united front later this summer when they host a charity gala in aid of emergency services.
Will that blue-and-white beach umbrella have been removed by then? Who can say? Either way, it is safe to assume that the argument over those cooking utensils may still be raging …