Kevin Costner Reacts to Fan Outrage Over His ‘Yellowstone’ Fate

Kevin Costner is weighing in on how his Yellowstone character was written off the show following his exit from the Paramount Network series.

Fans of Yellowstone were shocked during the premiere of Season 5B when John Dutton was revealed to have been killed in a murder plot orchestrated by Sarah Atwood (Dawn Olivieri) designed to look like a suicide. But despite John’s controversial death, Costner said he’s not phased by the backlash.

“Fans have a voice in things,” Costner told E! News on Sunday, Nov. 17, “and they choose to follow stuff.” The Oscar winner revealed he had actually pitched two different endings for John to series creator Taylor Sheridan “a while back,” but it was ultimately up to production how the Dutton patriarch would be written off the show. “They do what they want to do,” Costner shrugged. “That’s fine with me.”

Coster had previously weighed in on John’s death on Nov. 11, hours after the episode in question aired, saying that he “didn’t know it was actually airing last night” during an interview on SiriusXM’s The Michael Smerconish Program.

“That’s a swear-to-God moment. I swear to God,” he insisted. “I mean, I’ve been seeing ads with my face all over the place and I’m thinking, ‘Gee, I’m not in that one.’ I’m not in this season. But I didn’t realize yesterday was the thing. Somebody said, ‘It played last night?’ And I said, ‘Hmm, okay.’ So no, I found out about it this morning actually.”

Asked how he felt about his character’s death, Costner said, “I didn’t see it. I heard it’s a suicide. That doesn’t make me wanna rush to go see it.”

The actor announced in June that he would be stepping back unexpectedly from his starring role on Yellowstone due to scheduling issues with his four-part movie anthology Horizon: An American Saga. “I just wanted to reach out and let you know that, after this long year-and-a-half of working on Horizon, and doing all the things that that’s required, and thinking about Yellowstone—that beloved series that I love, that I know you love—I just realized that I am not going to be able to continue season 5B, or into the future,” he said in an Instagram video at the time.

The Bodyguard star continued by expressing his gratitude for the once-in-a-lifetime role, which he held from 2018 to 2022. “It was something that really changed me,” Costner added. “I loved it, and I know you loved it. I just wanted to let you know that I won’t be returning.”