By 1999, when Costner was filming ‘For the Love of the Game’, it wasn’t a professional baseball player pal he ticked off. Instead, it was an actor colleague. Apparently, men do not appreciate rumors of their wife hooking up with Kevin Costner. ‘For the Love of the Game’ co-star Kelly Preston, who happened to be married to John Travolta, became the focus of a brief tabloid flare-up.
While working on the film, the gossip press asserted the couple’s romance spilled from the storyline and the set into more intimate, offscreen places. National Enquirer published a story claiming that Travolta was “furious.” Neither Costner nor Preston addressed the press allegations. Meanwhile, Travolta and Preston remained married. And, Costner was just on the cusp of meeting “the one.”
A European Fling Interrupts a Serious Relationship
Italian-French Supermodel and pop singer Carla Bruni, known as France’s First Lady after dating French president Nicolas Sarkozy, was wooed by Kevin Costner as well. Their dating didn’t last. But, Bruni, one of the world’s first supermodels, also broke up with Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton, so he was in good company.
Just as it seemed Costner was ready to tie the knot again with beauty Elle Macpherson, he slipped into another affair and then back into bachelorhood.
1997 Was a Good Year for Costner
Two successful films lifted Costner into the coveted realm of actor accolades. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his outstanding performance in 'Tin Cup' (1996) and was honored with a nomination for a Saturn Award for his 1997 film 'The Postman'. And then the year got a little better.
He met news anchor Tawny Little. He dated the Miss America pageant winner secretly in 1997 and 1998. Costner wasn’t the first celeb Little dated. She had relationships with Ron Silver and Burt Reynolds, as well.
Could It Be True Love?
Kevin Costner’s long and winding quest to find the perfect wife after divorcing Cindy took him down a new path that collided directly with Christine Baumgartner’s. Another beautiful model would don his arm, as the fashion handbag designer and much younger beauty fell in love with the double-Oscar winning 'Dances With Wolves' actor. As a coincidence, Baumgartner’s alma mater is California State University Fullerton, too.
They met while he was practicing golf for his role in 'Tin Cup' in the late 1980s. He was married then. But in 1998, when they ran into each other again, he was free and so was she. He got her phone number and said he would call her in two weeks. It caught the actor off guard. He said, “When I met Christine, I wasn’t prepared to be in love again. It took me a long time before I said, ‘I love you’ to her, a long time.’” Long story short, they began dating, despite the 20-year age difference.
Costner’s Transition Out of Bachelorhood
His life as a single man was wild and crazy. He admitted it himself, saying, “When I wanted some company in my life, I was like the classic single guy—who do I love this week, who next week? I wouldn’t even use the word ‘love’ with someone, because that makes things trickier.” All the while, the tabloid press was trying to keep up.
When he ran into Christine Baumgartner again, however, all that began to change. Things were going well for a while. They started dating in 1998 when she was 33, and he was 53. But by 2002, they hit a rough patch and separated. The younger Baumgartner wanted to have children, while Costner refused to start a new family. She told him she would wait for him to come back, “but not long.”