Positively beaming, Kevin Costner’s ex Christine Baumgartner has been showing off her new massive bling around her stomping grounds in California.
Whether running her teenage daughter Grace to do errands on Coast Village Road in Montecito or stepping out with a girlfriend for some shopping at the K. Frank boutique just down the street, Christine appears happier than ever.
And why shouldn’t she be?
The 51-year-old has a lot to smile about since getting engaged to financier Josh Connor two months ago.
And the ring is of such quality that it could be seen refracting light from 50 feet away as these exclusive DailyMail.com photos show.
Sporting a cap that read ‘Montecito’, Christine briefly put her hand on her head as she walked with Grace, 14, on March 5.
Meanwhile, Costner’s been flaunting his eligible bachelor status and enjoying his newfound freedom by hitting some of the biggest entertainment events.
Baumgartner was also seen out and about with a girlfriend on laughing as they left the luxury boutique K. Frank.
Her left hand was draped over her $4,500 black Celine ‘Classique Triomphe’ handbag with the large diamond stealing the show.
A Los Angeles-based jeweler who examined DailyMail.com’s photos said:, ‘Wow, that’s quite a whopper! It looks to be about a five-carat square-cut diamond set in platinum.
‘Assuming it’s not a lab-grown diamond, I would estimate it to be worth about fifty thousand dollars.’
The former handbag designer got engaged to financier Connor, 49, on January 26, on what she thought was just a regular date in Santa Barbara.
According to People.com, he took her to the beach and got down on one knee to propose. ‘It was about to rain,’ a source told the outlet of the romantic proposal, ‘so almost no one else was on the beach.’
Connor is divorced with three children, and Christine shares sons Cayden, 17, Hayes, 15, and daughter Grace with her Costner, 70.
The proposal came a little over a year after her tumultuous divorce from the Yellowstone star was finalized.
Last month, Connor listed his five-bedroom, five-bathroom Montecito bachelor pad near the beach for an impressive $7.3million but on March 4, mysteriously took the home off the market.
Christine was renting a home for $22,000 a month just two miles away but has since downsized.
In their protracted divorce proceedings, Kevin was ordered by the court in 2023 to pay Christine $63,209 a month in child support, quite a cut from the $248,000 per month that she requested.
That amount is likely to be further cut when their son Cayden Wyatt Costner turns 18 on May 6. All support will end in June 2028 when Grace officially becomes an adult.
Christine’s legal bills from the child support battle are likely still an issue. At one point it was revealed that Connor ‘loaned’ her $10,000 due to financial strain.
There have been other signs that money could be an issue for a single Christine besides downsizing her living situation three times since the split.
While all of the children were in expensive private schools during the almost 20-year marriage, two of them are now in the Santa Barbara public school system.
It isn’t known for any academic excellence and is currently rated in the bottom 50% of all California public schools.
Other cost-saving measures have included the fact that Christine drives a two-year-old Range Rover with license plate tags which expired 10 months ago, and that she’s tootling around on almost bald tires.
She is regularly the one doing school runs, grocery shopping, trips to the doctor, after-school activities so the vehicle spends a lot of time on the road.
Costner recently dropped a carousel of photos on Instagram showing what he’d been up to last month.
The post kicked off with snaps of him at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, where he rubbed elbows with Quentin Tarantino, 61, and promoted his film Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 2.
Costner took the three children he shares with Christine to the event, which wasn’t the only time in the month when he let loose.
He also attended the Super Bowl in New Orleans and Saturday Night Live’s 50th anniversary special in New York City.
The post contained footage from the epic football game where he mingled with his new buddy 31-year-old Pete Davidson, followed by photos of him at the comedy special and he even appeared on camera during one of the bits.
Although his ex is moving on, an insider close to Costner told People that Kevin isn’t looking for anything serious right now – though he has been linked to a few people since the couple’s split.
Kevin and singer Jewel set tongue wagging back in November 2023 after they were seen hanging out on Richard Branson’s Necker Island during a fundraiser for Jewel’s Inspiring Children Foundation.
Speaking with Howard Stern last June, the show business vet debunked a rumor that he was involved with Jewel.
He told the longtime radio host, ‘Jewel and I are friends. We’ve never gone out ever.’
‘She’s special, and I don’t want – I don’t want these rumors to ruin our friendship because that’s what we have. She’s special to me. She’s beautiful enough to go out with,’ he added.
Costner was also recently linked to actress Sharon Stone, however, she personally shut down those rumors.
𝐏𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 “𝑭𝒂𝒏𝒑𝒂𝒈𝒆 & 𝑾𝒆𝒃𝒔𝒊𝒕𝒆: 𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑠𝑛𝑒𝑤𝑠.𝑖𝑛𝑓𝑜” 𝐭𝐨 𝐮𝐩𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐱𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧. 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐮𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐧-𝐝𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐡 𝐜𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐢𝐞𝐬
