Kevin Costner met Christine Baumgartner over a decade before they tied the knot in September 2004. Their paths first crossed on a golf course when Costner was practicing for his role in the 1996 “Tin Cup,” Us Weekly noted. But it wasn’t until Costner and Baumgartner ran into each other at a restaurant in the late 1990s that sparks flew. “We exchanged numbers, and I told her that I would — did she mind if I called her in two weeks,” the “Dances with Wolves” actor recalled to People in 2004.
Costner was lucky that Baumgartner answered. “I did not realize that was like an insult to a woman,” he laughed. They dated for a couple of years but split around 2002-03 because Costner and Baumgartner, who is nearly 20 years his junior, had different expectations. “Christine wanted a child, but I was afraid I couldn’t be an effective father,” Costner, who already had four children, told Parade in 2008 (via People).
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Their differences nearly kept Costner from giving the relationship a chance. “For years, fear kept me from marrying Christine,” he said. But he had a change of heart. “[One day] I woke up and thought, ‘Am I going to lose a beautiful woman who is willing to be with me to my very last breath because I am afraid to say yes to a child?'” They went on to have not one but three children together, Cayden, Hayes, and Grace.
