Kevin Costner didn’t know about ‘Yellowstone’ character’s death until it aired

Nov. 12 (UPI) — Kevin Costner says he didn’t know about his Yellowstone character John Dutton’s death until after the episode aired on Sunday night on Paramount.

“I’m going to be perfectly honest. I didn’t know it was actually airing last night,” Costner, 69, said on Monday’s edition of SiriusXM’s The Michael Smerconish Program.

“That’s a ‘swear-to-god’ moment. I’ve been seeing ads with my face all over the place and I’m thinking, ‘Gee, I’m not in that one.’ But I didn’t realize yesterday was the thing.”

He didn’t watch the episode right away to see what happened to his character, a Montana rancher who became the state’s governor.

“I heard it’s a suicide,” Costner said. “So, that doesn’t make me want to rush to go see it.”

By the end of the episode, it is revealed that John’s death was actually a murder staged to look like a suicide by Sarah (Dawn Olivieri), the scheming girlfriend of his adopted son Jamie (Wes Bentley), who is the state’s attorney general.

Costner announced he was not returning for the second half of Season 5 — which premiered Sunday — because delays in production caused scheduling conflicts with another project, his Horizon series of films.

The first half of Yellowstone Season 5 finished airing in January 2023.

The contemporary western was created by Taylor Sheridan. The prequels, 1883 and 1923, show what the Dutton family has endured to protect and expand their ranch through the years.