Kevin Costner Refused to Shorten Whitney Houston Eulogy So CNN Could Air Commercials: ‘They Can Get Over That’

Actor Kevin Costner revealed recently that he refused to shorten his 17-minute eulogy for beloved singer Whitney Houston at her televised funeral to accommodate CNN commercial breaks.

Yellowstone star explained on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast that he had written a 17-minute eulogy in honor of Whitney Houston at her funeral in 2012 (the two had been friends since starring together in the 1992 hit blockbuster The Bodyguard) only to be advised that he should cut it down for television.

“I had been working on this speech…and I tried to compile everything I wanted to do and finally crafted this speech,” Costner said. “Somebody said, ‘CNN’s here, they wouldn’t mind if your remarks were kept shorter because they’re going to have commercials.’ And I said, ‘They can get over that. They can play the commercial while I’m talking, I don’t care.'”

Costner did the eulogy that he had written after some encouragement from Dionne Warwick, according to Variety.
“I could feel the weight on her, now it’s shifted to me,” Costner said. “What am I going to say about this little girl? [I] went back to that church in Newark and it was filled. It was electric. There were two bands playing, the church was alive. It was like, boom!”

Houston died in 2012 from an accidental drowning at the age of 48.

In 2022, Costner talked about his experience of filming The Bodyguard, in which he played a U.S. Secret Service agent hired to protect Houston from a mysterious stalker. The film became a massive hit, grossing $411 million worldwide thanks in part to Houston’s chart-topping single “I Will Always Love You.”

“I don’t think we’ll ever forget when that little song came out, that [Houston] just blew up,” he said at the time. “She sang the first part of it a cappella and musically the world was never the same. We have a moment of her in that movie we’ll never ever forget that and I think that when movies are working at their best, that’s what can happen.”

Paul Roland Bois directed the award-winning Christian tech thriller, EXEMPLUM, which can be viewed for FREE on YouTube or Tubi. “Better than Killers of the Flower Moon,” wrote Mark Judge. “You haven’t seen a story like this before,” wrote Christian Toto. A high-quality, ad-free rental can also be streamed on Google Play, Vimeo on Demand, or YouTube Movies. Follow on X @prolandfilms or Instagram @prolandfilms.