What Is Kevin Costner's Net Worth and Salary?
Kevin Costner is an American actor, producer, and director who has a net worth of $250 million. At the peak of his career in the 1980s and 1990s, Kevin Costner was one of the highest-paid actors in the world thanks to roles in hit movies like "Dances with Wolves," which he directed and starred in, and "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves."
In 1991 alone, Kevin earned $50 million thanks largely to his backend points on "Dances with Wolves." Earning $50 million in 1991 is the same as earning $110 million today. The film went on to win seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture. A year later, backend points brought his payday for "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" to $40 million.
Kevin also earned a hefty paycheck of $14 million for his role in the 1995 blockbuster "Waterworld." As of this writing, Costner has won two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, one Primetime Emmy Award, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. In recent years, Kevin has earned critical and popular praise for his work on the television series "Yellowstone."
"Yellowstone" Salary
Ahead of the filming of the fifth season of "Yellowstone," Kevin signed a new deal with Paramount that boosted his salary to $1.2 million per episode for what was planned to be a 16-episode season split into two parts. The first part aired between November 2022 and January 2023. In February 2023, it was revealed that Costner was feuding with the show's creator/producer, Taylor Sheridan and Paramount over the total number of days he would be required to film the second part. Assuming the second part gets filmed, he will have earned $19.2 million for the fifth season. If a sixth season is produced, his per-episode salary will be boosted to $1.5 million, which would be $24 million for the season.
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Early Life and Career Beginnings
Kevin Michael Costner was born in Lynwood, California, on January 18, 1955. His mother, Sharon Rae (née Tedrick), was a welfare worker, and his father, William Costner, was an electrician and later utility executive at Southern California Edison. Costner is the youngest of three boys, but his middle brother died at birth. He grew up in Compton, California, and was raised Baptist.
Due to his father's career, the family moved relatively often around various parts of California, particularly during his teenage years. He attended Mt. Whitney High School before moving to Orange County, California, where he eventually graduated from Villa Park High School in 1973. He continued his education at California State University, Fullerton, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in marketing and finance in 1978.
Costner began to pursue acting after college, inspired by an encounter with the actor Richard Burton, who encouraged Kevin to chase his longtime, secret dream. Costner made it to Hollywood the hard way: acting classes, odd jobs, auditions, and very little money. His work paid off, though, and soon, after a brief stint in a film in 1974, began to break into acting full-time in the 1980s.
Film Career
Costner's role in the 1987 film, "The Untouchables" is widely considered to have been his "big break," followed by "Dances with Wolves" in 1990, which he directed as well as starred in. "Dances with Wolves" is also the film that earned him his two Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture. However, Kevin has appeared in a long list of projects and films throughout his career.
Technically, Costner made his feature film debut in the film "Sizzle Beach, U.S.A.," which was filmed in the winter of 1978 to 1979. However, it was not released until 1981 and then re-released again in 1986. This led many to think that Costner's first feature film was 1983's "The Touch." In 1983, he also appeared in the films "Table for Five" and "Testament" and was featured in a commercial for Apple promoting the Lisa desktop computer model. In 1985, he worked on numerous projects, including a starring role in director Lawrence Kasdan's film "Silverado," and the films "Fandango" and "American Flyers."
"The Untouchables" was not Costner's only film in 1987; he also starred in the thriller "No Way Out" that year. In the following years, his performances in "Bull Durham" (1988) and "Field of Dreams" (1989) helped to solidify and secure his status as an A-list actor. He partnered with producer Jim Wilson in 1990, and they formed the production company Tig Productions. The company's first project was the epic film "Dances with Wolves" (1990), which, as previously mentioned, Kevin both directed and starred in. That year, Costner also starred in the film "Revenge" (1990).
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Costner followed his success with "Dances with Wolves" with a series of films that all either received critical acclaim or were box office hits. These include "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" (1991), "JFK" (1991), "The Bodyguard" (1992), and Clint Eastwood's "A Perfect World" (1993). However, this string of successes was followed by a string of films that failed to garner much attention and were generally received quite poorly by both audiences and critics, including "The War" (1994), "Waterworld" (1995), and "The Postman" (1997). Out of these three, "The Postman"—which Costner not only starred in but directed—had the worst results. It actually ended up receiving five Golden Raspberry Awards, including the awards for Worst Picture, Worst Actor, and Worst Director.
Kevin continued to act and starred in the films "Tin Cup" (1996), "Message in a Bottle" (1999), "Thirteen Days" (2000), "Rumor Has It" (2005), "The Guardian" (2006), "Mr. Brooks" (2007), "Swing Vote" (2008), and "The Company Men" (2010). Costner then graced television screens in 2012 when he starred in the three-part History Channel miniseries "Hatfields & McCoys." The series pulled in a record number of 13.9 million viewers. Since then, he has appeared in a number of films and even landed the first regular television role of his career, starting in 2018, on the series "Yellowstone."
Business Interests
In June 2004, Costner opened an attraction called Tatanka: The Story of the Bison on U.S. Routh 85, one mile south of Deadwood, South Dakota. He hoped that it could serve as an educational space for people to learn about America's history of westward expansion. He has also invested in the Midnight Star Casino in Deadwood. When he fired Francis and Carla Caneva, the managers of the casino, in July 2004, a judge ordered him to pay a percentage of $6.1 million to buy out the Canevas as his business partners. He then asked the South Dakota Supreme Court to re-examine the ruling in 2006 after an accountant he hired determined the market value of the casino to be $3.1 million.
Personal Life
Costner married Cindy Silva, his college sweetheart, after they graduated in 1978. They share three children. After 16 years of marriage, Costner and Silva divorced in 1994. Kevin ultimately agreed to pay Cindy Silva an $80 million divorce settlement. It was one of the most expensive divorces in Hollywood history up to that point.
After his marriage ended, Kevin then dated and had a son with Bridget Rooney. Bridget is an heiress to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Her nieces are actresses Kate Mara and Rooney Mara.
Kevin also has dated activist Birgit Cunningham and model/actress Elle Macpherson.
In 2004, Costner married model and handbag designer Christine Baumgartner. They have three children together.
Divorce Settlements
Kevin paid his first wife, Cindy Silva, an $80 million divorce settlement in the mid-1990s. After adjusting for inflation, that's the same as paying a $160 million settlement in today's dollars.
On May 2, 2023, Christine Baumgartner filed for divorce from Kevin after 18 years of marriage, citing irreconcilable differences. Christine did not initially request spousal support in her filing because they have a prenup agreement in place. Per a filing from Kevin's lawyer:
"Spousal support to be payable to petitioner pursuant to the terms of the parties' Premarital Agreement."
However, in mid-June 2023, Christine filed a request for monthly support totaling $250,000. As if that number wasn't stunning enough, $250,000 did NOT include all expenses related to their children, which he is already paying. In her filing, Christine claimed Kevin made $19.5 million in 2023 and that the family's total expenses came to $6.6 million. Among those expenses are regular trips to vacation spots like Aspen, Hawaii, and the Caribbean, where the family would often hire a team of chefs and caterers for their needs. Also, they spend around $2 million per year maintaining their various properties.
In a follow-up filing, Christine listed a multitude of details regarding the family's 2022 income and expenses. Her legal filing said his total income in 2022 came to $19.5 million. Specifically $19,517,064. Kevin earns $1.2 million per episode of "Yellowstone." It's believed that he filmed eight episodes in 2022. That works out to a bit under $10 million of that $19.5 million. As for his other income, Kevin earned $2.3 million in rent from his Aspen ranch and $503,000 renting a beachfront property in Carpinteria, California.
The filing estimated total "family expenses" at $6.5 million. Specifically, $6,645,285.
Here's a breakdown of how the Costner family spent $6 million in 2022:
- Aspen House Costs: $1,964,294.95
- Beach House Costs: $1,178,147.16
- Gifts: $830,504.51
- Gardener: $542,303.47
- Beach Club Costs: $288,381.24
- Household Help: $84,040.78
- Golf & Club Dues: $34,434.90
- Boat Expenses: $25,806.45
- Spa Service: $21,807.67
- Personal Trainer: $12,851.58
Total Expenses: $5,982,772.71
In the filing, Christine also claimed that Kevin told her he was once offered $250 million for his Aspen property. This is in addition to their other real estate properties, which we detail in the next section.
Real Estate
Costner owns an extremely impressive real estate portfolio featuring gorgeous properties around the country. Here are some notable examples:
Aspen, Colorado:
The Costners owns a 160-acre property in Aspen that features three lakefront homes that can comfortably sleep 30 people. He acquired the property in three transactions. The first two transactions, one in the late 1980s and another in the early 1990s, were for undisclosed amounts. In 2017, he paid $7.3 million for the third parcel to complete the 160-acre property. He rents this property out for the low-low price of $30,000 per NIGHT.
Carpinteria, California:
Nestled between Malibu and Santa Barbara is a quaint beachfront town called Carpinteria. Over the decades, the Costners have pieced together an absolutely incredible estate made up of three side-by-side properties. He bought the first of the three properties in the 1980s. They added the second a decade later and then waited all the way until 2017 to buy the third property for $7.3 million.
They previously owned a 7-acre property in the same area, which they sold in 2009 for $25 million.
This is not the Costners' only Carpinteria property.
In 2006, they paid $28.5 million for a 17-acre undeveloped plot of land overlooking the ocean.
They own an additional 10-acre property in Carpinteria, which they tried to sell in 2017 for $60 million. They reduced the price to $49 million a year later but ultimately took the property off the market. Here is a video tour of this incredible property:
