Why Is Kevin Costner Not in the New Season of ‘Yellowstone’?

While the internet was airing its grievances with Yellowstone season 5B following its Sunday, November 10, premiere, Kevin Costner had no idea that the exit of his character, John Dutton III, would cause such a stir. In fact, the 69-year-old actor revealed that he didn’t know how his storyline was going to end—and he’s just as shocked as were.

“Well, I’m going to be perfectly honest. I didn’t know it was actually airing last night,” Costner said during his November 11 appearance on SiriusXM’s The Michael Smerconish Program. “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.”

Costner revealed that he would be leaving Yellowstone after season 5, leaving the fate of Dutton unclear to fans. Viewers finally received answers in the very first episode of the part 2 premiere, and learned that Dutton was killed in a murder-for-hire plot by character Sarah Atwood, and it was staged to be a suicide.

Though fans were less than thrilled to learn about how Dutton’s story ended—his body wasn’t shown in full during the episode—Costner remains confident that the Yellowstone writers room knows what they’re doing with the plot.

“I heard what it was, but no, they’re smart people,” he continued. “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.”

As for how Costner feels about his character’s death, he said, “I didn’t see it. I heard it’s a suicide. That doesn’t make me wanna rush to go see it.”

Elsewhere during Costner’s appearance on The Michael Smerconish Program, he addressed rumors that he quit Yellowstone in order to film his western franchise, Horizon. According to the actor, he initially had room to do both projects at the same time, and that later changed.

“I didn’t really have to leave anything behind. There were the gaps that were there,” Costner explained. “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.”

He continued, “There was the time there, what happened, you can deal with it. But I didn’t leave. I didn’t quit the show. Okay? I had made a contract to do all three. 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.”