The 43-year-old actor's suit against Hola! was filed in federal court in Los Angeles yesterday. It also claims invasion of privacy and seeks unspecified damages. No comment from the mag's publisher.
At issue is a March 1997 Hola! article, "Kevin Costner Owns Up to Mixed Feelings Toward His Unplanned Baby Son." (That's said to be a loose translation.)
The piece features quotes from the Waterworld gill man mouthing off about his ex-wife, Cindy ("No romantic relationship lasts forever"), his ex-lover Bridgette Rooney ("[She] wanted to get pregnant to ensnare me") and his son by Rooney, Liam ("Liam, through no fault of his own, has been forced on me").
One (big) problem: Costner says the quotes are "false"--lifted, he claims, from the same bogus article in Hola!'s sister English-language publication, Hello! The Oscar winner filed a libel suit concerning the Hello! report last year. Costner is now no less adamant in the Hola! case.
"All of the alleged quotations in the [Hola!] article are pure fiction," the new lawsuit reads. "Costner has never made such remarks. Nor has he ever given, or consented to give, an interview dealing with the private concerns allegedly revealed in the article."
Costner spoke obliquely and thoughtfully about his private life, including the breakdown of his 16-year marriage in 1994, for a recent profile in John F. Kennedy Jr.'s George. The diplomatic stance on display there is in stark contrast to the Costner depicted in Hola!
On the subject of fatherhood, Costner allegedly says, "I'd like to be able to say [my children] are all equal in my eyes, but that wouldn't be true. My first three children were wished for...I'm afraid [Liam will] never mean the same to me as the others."
Asked about his reputation as a "Don Juan," the movie star reportedly responds: "I can't help it. To me women are like a drug: I like them all."
Costner has two daughters and a son by Cindy Costner. Liam was born in 1996, the product of a brief relationship with Rooney, of Aspen, Colorado.