Kevin Costner walked into a pre-Super Bowl party in San Francisco as a Hollywood legend. He ended the night sounding like something different, and more fragile, a 71-year-old father of seven quietly admitting how much it still matters that his children look up to him.
TLDR
At a pre-Super Bowl party in San Francisco, Kevin Costner opened up about wanting his seven children to keep looking up to him while reshaping life after his divorce and easing into a careful, low-key new romance.
At the Fanatics pre-Super Bowl bash, surrounded by athletes, moguls, and cameras, Costner did not lead with career milestones or his latest project. Instead, he talked about the one audience that still makes him nervous, his kids.
According to Daily Mail US, Costner shared that he still wants his children to admire him, even as they grow into adults with their own opinions, lives, and Google histories.
Costner Opens Up on Fatherhood
Costner has never worn his private life as loudly as some of his peers. Yet when the subject turned to his children in San Francisco, he let the facade slip. Speaking to Daily Mail US, he said, “I still want my kids to look up to me. I used to be the strongest person they ever saw. I want to stay that way for them.”
For a man long defined by strong, stoic roles, the quote lands differently now. His oldest children are in their 30s and 40s. His youngest ones, with ex-wife Christine Baumgartner, are teenagers just beginning to test their independence in a world where their father’s name still fills headlines.
Costner shares Annie, Lily, and Joe with his first wife, Cindy Silva. He welcomed son Liam with Bridget Rooney. With Baumgartner, he became a hands-on dad again, this time to Cayden, Hayes, and Grace. It is a sprawling, blended family that has grown up alongside his career, from “The Bodyguard” and “Dances with Wolves” to his more recent powerhouse run in “Yellowstone.”
Costner reflected on how clearly his life lined up once he discovered filmmaking. According to Daily Mail US, he said he appreciates “everything that’s happened” to him and called finding what he wanted to do in life a “huge blessing.” The subtext is unmistakable. Career clarity did not always translate to personal simplicity.
There is an emotional risk for a father of grown and nearly grown children to admit that he still worries about whether he measures up in their eyes. For Costner, it reads less as image management and more as a late-life reordering of priorities. The Super Bowl weekend, usually a flex of power players, turned into an unexpectedly vulnerable check-in from a movie star dad.
Life After the Baumgartner Divorce
The softer tone from Costner comes in the long shadow of a very public split. He married handbag designer and former model Christine Baumgartner in 2004. They built a life in Santa Barbara, welcomed three children, and for years projected a curated version of coastal stability.
Behind the scenes, the marriage unraveled. Baumgartner filed for divorce in 2023, and the legal process played out in courtrooms and tabloids before the divorce was finalized in 2024. According to coverage from outlets including Us Weekly, the split involved disputes over child support, living arrangements, and what their new normal would look like.
The dissolution of the marriage dented the public narrative of Costner as an unshakable family man. Here was the star once held up as the face of rugged, reliable Western masculinity on “Yellowstone,” facing the same custody calendars and property negotiations as any other divorced parent.
Reports have suggested that Baumgartner has moved forward, including a relationship with a man who once moved in the couple’s social circle. Us Weekly reported that Costner remains hurt by aspects of the breakup and the pace at which his ex restructured her world. A source told the outlet that “part of him wishes they could have made it work” and that he tries not to dwell on how her life has shifted.
Those whispers of lingering resentment add a layer of poignancy to Costner’s comments about strength. Strength, for him, no longer seems to be about stoicism. It sounds more like staying emotionally upright enough that his children can still see him as a steady point, even as the family map redraws itself.
Co-parenting teenagers after a very public breakup requires a quiet discipline that does not show up on red carpets. It is early morning school runs, negotiated holidays, and learning when to step back as they form their own opinions about everything they have seen and read.
A Grounding New Romance
Against that complicated backdrop, Costner has been linked to writer and filmmaker Kelly Noonan Gores. According to Us Weekly, the pair began seeing each other in the late summer and have kept their connection deliberately low profile.
Us Weekly reported that Gores has been a “grounding” presence for the actor. The outlet’s insider described their time together as revolving around dinners at home, long walks on the beach, and quiet nights in at his Santa Barbara estate. In other words, the kind of scenes that rarely make it into the paparazzi frame.
The same source emphasized that Costner is “not looking for a serious relationship or marriage any time soon” and portrayed the romance as “private and casual.” After the courtroom scrutiny of his divorce, keeping things gentle and off stage appears to be part of his healing strategy.
For Costner’s public image, the pairing with Gores is a pivot from the glossy, high-profile coupledom he shared with Baumgartner. Gores, known for her work on the documentary “Heal,” has built a reputation around wellness, introspection, and personal growth. The idea that she is a balancing force for him fits neatly into a narrative of a man trying to recalibrate his emotional life without rushing into another lifelong commitment.
The contrast is striking. At the party in San Francisco, Costner was photographed laughing, posing, playing the part of the veteran Hollywood star at one of the most visible weekends in American sports. Yet his rare comments point to a quieter project, reshaping himself as a father and a man in late middle age, in a way his children can respect.
For Gen X fans who first discovered him in the late 1980s and 1990s, and for Baby Boomers who watched his ascent in real time, this chapter carries its own kind of nostalgia. The matinee idol of their younger years is now talking about staying strong enough to carry his family through change, not just his characters through a script.
If anything, Costner’s Super Bowl weekend remarks pull his legacy arc into sharper focus. The box office wins and television triumphs are already secure. The next act, by his own admission, will be judged in living rooms, not theaters, by seven pairs of eyes that have seen both his best and his worst.
Join the Discussion
How do Kevin Costner’s recent comments about wanting his children to keep looking up to him change the way you see his post-divorce reinvention and new relationship?
