Kevin Costner Questions Estranged Wife’s Claim That She ‘Felt Pressured’ to Sign Prenup

Kevin Costner’s attorneys are firing back at his estranged wife Christine’s claims that she felt pressured to sign their prenuptial agreement.

The pair married in 2004 with a prenup in place, a decade after Kevin reportedly paid his ex-wife Cindy Silva some $80 million in his first divorce. On May 1, Christine, 49, filed for divorce after 18 years of marriage, challenging the terms of the pre-marital agreement.

In new court documents filed by Kevin’s legal team on August 10, his lawyers pushed back at her side for now claiming she “felt pressured to sign the agreement because of the circumstances surrounding its execution” and “didn’t fully understand it.” “This, after she previously admitted she entered the agreement under her own “free will,” the lawyers wrote.

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“This contradicts the unambiguous language in the PMA wherein Christine represented in all caps that she ‘voluntarily’ and ‘free from duress, fraud or undue influence’ entered into the agreement,” lawyers for Kevin, 68, wrote. “Christine cannot have her cake and eat it too.”

Lawyers for Christine did not respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.

Kevin Costner and Christine in March 2022.

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Kevin’s lawyers claim Christine has avoided answering questions — including whether or not she understood the agreement before she signed it — throughout the discovery process as both legal teams prepare for the November trial to determine the validity of the prenup.

Under the prenup’s terms, Christine received a $1.5 million payout, which she risks forfeiting by challenging the agreement.

“Christine asserts she cannot admit or deny that she understood the Premarital Agreement because she (and apparently all of her attorneys) do not understand the word ‘understood,'” Kevin’s lawyers wrote. “This is gamesmanship of the worst sort. ‘Understood’ is not a technical or arcane word.”

The stakes are high in this back and forth over the prenup. Part of the agreement outlined that if either party retained counsel to “enforce or prevent a breach” of the agreement, “the prevailing party … shall be entitled … to be reimbursed by the non-prevailing party for all costs and expenses incurred thereby.” Kevin has already requested Christine pay his more than $99,000 in legal fees for litigating the prenup.

Kevin Costner, Christine and kids in 2019.
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Christine’s July 5 filing called out Kevin’s move to have her pay his legal fees: “Kevin asserts that he should not have to pay fees and costs for Christine to challenge the validity of the PMA. He also regularly claims that the PMA is valid and that there is no evidence to the contrary. This is the legal equivalent of whistling past the graveyard.”

Following court orders, Christine recently moved out of the Santa Barbara home where she and Kevin lived with their three kids Cayden, 16, Hayes, 14, and Grace, 13.

Separately, Kevin was ordered to temporarily pay $129,755 per month in child support until future court dates. The ruling is retroactive, meaning that child support will have to be paid forward or back dating back to July 1 if changes are made in the final ruling of the case.

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Source: HIS Education