Kevin Costner is going through a lot of major changes in his life right now, between leaving the extremely popular series Yellowstone after five seasons and his ongoing divorce to his wife Christine Baumgartner.
While both his departure from the show and his divorce – after being together for nearly two decades – came as a shock to many fans, Costner, although he wished for it to never happen again, is no stranger to separating from a spouse.
In 1978, the Dancing With Wolves star married his first wife, Cindy Silva, and went on to welcome three kids together, Annie, Lily, and Joe.
Similar to his current situation, his and Cindy’s marriage lasted a very long time – 16 years – before divorcing in 1994. Both Cindy and Christine also struggled with keeping up with Costner’s immensely busy schedule.
When Silva and Costner wed, the Hollywood star was just starting to dip his feet in the film industry. But he quickly rose to fame and juggling that demanding lifestyle with raising a family can prove to be much more difficult than most can understand.
Silva, who worked in marketing for Delta Airlines, was just as excited for her now ex to achieve great things in Hollywood. But as time went on, she recognized the difficulties that came with being a present husband and father to their three children.
Unfortunately, as much as they both felt love for one another, a relationship in which they could have a semi-normal family life became less and less realistic. Although they couldn’t make the relationship work, they kept that love alive between themselves.
A source close to the former couple told People at the time, “I think their relationship as individuals will be okay. They have a common love, their kids, who are the most important thing to both of them. I don’t think they’ll have one of those cutthroat relationships. It’s just sad, because they were the perfect couple.”
Nearly 30 years later, after an $80 million divorce settlement and infidelity rumors on Kevin’s part, they never showed any of those “cutthroat” traits towards each other. Costner even talked with The Hollywood Reporter in 2012, eight years after marrying Baumgartner, about how he felt losing his first wife.
“My faith was shaken,” he said of his first divorce. “No one wants their marriage to end, and it did. You are going to see the people you love most, your children, only half as much. That’s a huge loss.”
Sadly, he and his second wife endured similar circumstances where Kevin reportedly struggled to make time for his second family, consisting of his two sons with whom he shares with Christine, Cayden and Hayes, and their daughter Grace.
In addition to Costner allegedly having disagreements with the creator of Yellowstone, Taylor Sheridan, reports claim that he also decided to leave the show to spend time with his wife and teenage children.
However, that hiatus would ultimately be disrupted again as Costner decided to pursue his own project with a Civil War-based film titled, Horizon, in which he is directing.
“Kevin paid [Christine’s] lip service by demanding a more favorable shooting schedule on Yellowstone,” a source close to the couple said recently. “But then he threw gasoline on the fire by using that time to focus on his Civil War project.”
“He’s worth a quarter of a billion dollars, and she had the tiniest engagement ring in Hollywood,” they added. “He’d think nothing of being away for months at a time on the Yellowstone set — or other projects — if he thought it would cement his status as one of Hollywood’s biggest stars.”
Unlike his first divorce, it seems this one is getting a little messier.
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