Kevin Costner reacts to John Dutton’s ‘Yellowstone’ death

SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for Season 5, Episode 9, which aired November 10 on Paramount Network.

Yellowstone killed John Dutton on Sunday night’s Season 5 Part 2 premiere, but Kevin Costner hasn’t seen the episode yet.

“I’ll be completely honest. I didn’t know it actually aired last night,” Costner said in an interview with SiriusXM’s “The Michael Smerconish Program” Monday morning. “This is a moment I swear to God. I swear to God. I mean, I’ve seen commercials everywhere that have my face in them and I’m like, ‘Gosh, I’m not in that.’ I’m not in this season.”

Costner, who left Taylor Sheridan’s western drama after Season 5, Part 1, which premiered in November 2022, said he found out how his character was sent off the morning after the episode aired.

“I didn’t see it. I heard it was a suicide, so I don’t want to rush to see it,” Costner said. When Smerconish said that Dutton “never seemed like a suicidal person to me,” Costner replied, “Well, they’re pretty smart people.” Maybe it’s a red herring. Who knows? They are very good. And they will find out.”

Costner said that early in the series, there were “a few times where I talked about possible endings for myself,” but they didn’t involve suicide. But he added that how the “Yellowstone” writers wrote Dutton out of the story was “up to them.”

As for Dutton’s death, Costner was right that the suicide was a diversionary tactic. In the episode, John’s death was a result of Sarah (Dawn Olivieri), the villainous fixer who sleeps with John’s power-hungry son Jamie (Wes Bentley) and hits him through a shady but professional organization. Although she insists he would never commit suicide, the hitwoman says it’s the easiest way to get away undetected because she can stage a shooting scene and toxicologists or other forensic experts don’t have to delve too deeply during the autopsy.

Elsewhere in his interview with Smerconish, Costner reiterated that he had not left Yellowstone. He insists the show couldn’t get around his contractual agreements for Costner’s Horizon film saga.

“There were contractual things that allowed both things to be done, but since both things were contractual you had to make room for the other thing. There was space, but they had a hard time keeping to their schedule. It seemed like it was just too difficult for her,” said Costner, who added, “I didn’t go. I didn’t give up.”

Costner continued: “I had 300 people waiting for me, I couldn’t help them anymore. I just couldn’t help them. But I didn’t leave the show… Everyone has to live up to their promises. And it doesn’t matter what industry you’re in.”

Watch a clip from Costner’s interview below.