Kevin Costner Confirms His Yellowstone Days Are Over — Watch

It is now double-secret official: Kevin Costner says he won’t be returning to Yellowstone , ever.

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Costner made the proclamation in an Instagram video posted late Thursday — hours after the lonnnng-delayed back half of Yellowstone Season 5 finally got a precise premiere date — bringing to a close an exhausting and often-circular 17 months’ worth of rumors, he said/they said, and speculation.

“I just want 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’m not going to be able to continue, Season 5B or into the future,” Costner shares in the video below, alluding to his big-screen Western franchise, Horizon: An American Saga , which will his theaters with “Chapter 1” next Friday, June 28.

“[ Yellowstone ] was something that really changed me,” he goes on to say. “I loved it, and I know you loved it, and I just wanted to let you know that I won’t be returning. I love the relationship we’ve been able to develop, and I’ll see you at the movies.”

Reports of Costner’s Yellowstone status being in flux amid alleged “ disagreements over shooting schedules ” first surfaced in February 2023. Since then, there have been myriad reports and sound bites, from both sides.

At one point, Costner reportedly proposed a one-week-only work schedule, which Paramount Network declined; Costner has since explained that when he found himself with a free week, he offered it to Yellowstone , “and somebody picked up the idea that I only wanted to work one week. And that has been a carryover thing that I have seen in magazines: that I’ve only wanted to work one week.”

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Before the writers’ strike began in May 2023, series co-creator Taylor Sheridan had finished scripts for the back half of Season 5 that did not include Costner, seeing as the decision to split Season 5 into two halves interfered with production on Horizon .

“Their big plan was to suddenly do eight [episodes] now and then in the fall do eight more,” Costner told GQ recently. “I said, ‘I have a contract to do Horizon, and I have people and money.’ I think there was a belief that I couldn’t get it mounted.” But the writer-director-star managed to pull it off.

Even amid reports of his behind-the-scenes tension with Sheridan, Costner said as recently as April that he’d “love” to do more Yellowstone , if “I feel really comfortable with it.”

Alas, that return is not to be.

Are you disappointed that Costner won’t be back on Yellowstone ? Are you at all surprised? Drop a comment with your thoughts below.

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