The second part of the fifth and final season of Yellowstone premiered on Sunday night. After Kevin Costner declined to return to film the last episodes of the show, his character John Dutton was shockingly killed off within the first few minutes of the premiere.
The next morning, Costner broke his silence to address the fact that Yellowstone show-runners decided to have that the character of Dutton die via suicide by gunshot.
Costner Speaks Out
“Well, I’m going to be perfectly honest. I didn’t know it was actually airing last night,” Costner, 69, said while appearing on The Michael Smerconish Program on Monday. “That’s a swear to God moment. I swear to God. 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,” he continued. “I didn’t see it. I heard it’s a suicide, so that doesn’t make me want to rush to go see it.”
Costner went on to seemingly address Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan and the other people behind the scenes on the show.
“I heard what it was, but no, they’re smart people,” Costner said. “Whatever they’re doing, they’ll figure it out. But yeah, I had come up with two possible endings back when it wasn’t going to go as long as it did go.”
Then he dropped a cryptic hint that could portend for the future.
“They’re pretty smart people. Maybe it’s a red herring,” he added of the suicide. “They’re very good. They’ll figure that out.”
Check out Costner’s full comments on this in the video below.
Fans Respond
This comes after many fans expressed outrage over Dutton’s death. These outraged fans simply didn’t believe that he would have killed himself.
“Ok no way John Dutton killed himself. They did his character dirty!!” one fan commented, with another adding, “Not the way i expected #Yellowstone to start.”
“It hasn’t been 5 minutes of #Yellowstone and I AM NOT OKAY,” a third fan wrote. A fourth fan stated, “I can’t believe the way they took John Dutton out. Buckle up. It will be a wild ride now.”
Costner Talks Yellowstone Exit
Costner announced earlier this year that he would not be returning to film the final episodes of Yellowstone. It was claimed that he was exiting the show because the production dates conflicted with those of his four-part western epic Horizon.
“I didn’t really have to leave anything behind. There were the gaps that were there,” Costner explained in Monday’s interview. “There was contractual things that would allow for both things to be done, but because both things were contractual, you had to make room for the other thing…there was room, but it was difficult for them to keep their schedule. It was just too difficult for them to do it.”
“There was the time there, what happened, you can deal with it. But I didn’t leave. I didn’t quit the show. OK? I had made a contract to do all three,” he continued. “There was a contract in place to do all three. And within about an eight-month period, two more different kind of contracts were being negotiated. Not at my request, but at their request to try to do things.”
“I accommodated them on those extra two things that changed — things change — and finally when they wanted to change it a third time, because I had my obligations to do, I had 300 people waiting for me, I couldn’t help them anymore,” Costner concluded. “I just simply couldn’t help them. But I didn’t quit the show. There was no … you know, everybody has to live up to what they say they’re going to do. And it doesn’t matter what business you’re in.”
The next episode of Yellowstone airs on Sunday night at 8pm on Paramount. It will certainly be interesting how the series ends and whether or not John Dutton’s death was a “red herring”!
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