‘Yellowstone’: Kevin Costner Sends Message to Fans as He Turns 66

Yellowstone star Kevin Costner sent out a thank you message to all of his followers after celebrating his 66th birthday on Jan. 18. He kept things short and sweet, simply telling his fans, “Thanks for all the birthday wishes. Incredibly grateful for another trip around the sun.”

Fans flocked to the comments where they also told the actor happy birthday. A few of his fans made some of their own wishes for the actor to fulfill in his new year of life. “Cheers to many, many more and maybe some live music later this year,” one comment said. “Happy Birthday Kevin! Hope you’ll be getting back in the director’s chair soon!” someone else shared.

The actor’s birthday this year falls just after filing a $15 million lawsuit with a former business executive of his, Jim Wilson. The two worked together for over 20 years. They met while working on a movie in 1983, and from there, their business relationship escalated. Costner hired Wilson as Executive VP with his TIG production company. But things became complicated once the company signed an exclusive deal with Warner Bros.

Because the exclusive deal didn’t directly include Wilson, the Executive VP ventured off to do his own thing. Costner then created Good One Productions in 1992. With TIG funding all of Good Ones production operations, Costner was the only director and officer within the company. Since Wilson hadn’t been involved in the company since 2004, Costner decided to wind down Good Ones and asked Wilson to transfer his bare legal ownership stocks to Costner. Wilson refused and asked for $50,000 to sign.

“[G]iven that Costner and Wilson had not done business together for more than 12 years, and Wilson was no longer an officer of TIG, it made no sense for Wilson to hold bare legal title GOP stock,” attorney Howard Kaplan said according to The Hollywood Reporter. “[Wilson] indicated he was not interested in producing any of the projects, not interested in any contingent compensation for any of the projects and did not want anything to do with Costner with respect to these projects. However, he refused to sign the agreement.”