Kevin Costner Reacts To John Dutton's Fate in YELLOWSTONE and Reiterates "I Didn't Quit The Show"

Yellowstone Season 5 Part 2 premiered this past weekend, and it revealed the fate of John Dutton. If you haven’t watched the episode yet, there are spoilers ahead!

As you know, there was a lot of behind-the-scenes drama with Yellowstone and Kevin Costner was not able to return to appear in the final episodes of the season, which was a big bummer.

Well, we learned in the episode that John Dutton was killed off in a staged suicide. It was a just one of those things that had to be done, and the rest of the story is going to be built on that event.

Costner recently learned of his character’s fate in the series, and while he didn’t see it, he has heard about it, and he’s in no rush to watch it.

While a guest on The Michael Smerconish Program on SiriusXM, the actor said: “I didn’t see it. I heard it’s a suicide, so that doesn’t make me want to rush to go see it.”

When the person interviewing Costner noted that John Dutton didn’t seem like a ‘suicide kind of guy,’ Costner said, “Well, they’re pretty smart people. Maybe it’s a red herring. Who knows? They’re very good. And they’ll figure that out.”

Costner also reiterated that he didn’t quit Yellowstone. Things simply didn’t work out because the network producers kept changing things.

He explained: “I didn’t really have to leave anything behind. There were the gaps that were there. 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 seemed to be, it was just too difficult for them to do it. There was the time there, what happened, you can deal with it. But no one, 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.

“I accommodated them on those extra two things that changed, things change, and finally when they wanted to change it a third time, because I had my obligations to do, I had 300 people waiting for me, I couldn’t help them anymore.

“I just simply couldn’t help them. But I didn’t quit the show. There was no, there was just a, you know, everybody has to live up to what they say they’re going to do. And it doesn’t matter what business you’re in.”

It seems to me like the network and producers kept changing things to push Costner out. But, who knows. Regardless, Yellowstone is back and I’m looking forward to seeing how the rest of the series plays out and comes to a close.