Kevin Costner Confirms He’s Not Returning to Yellowstone

John Dutton won’t be getting his grand Yellowstone ending after all. On Thursday, Paramount Network announced that the second half of Yellowstone’s fifth season is finally going to premiere on November 10th. A few hours later, however, Kevin Costner took to social media to confirm that he will not be returning to the hit series. There has been a lot of speculation regarding Costner’s potential involvement, but this video from the star himself feels like the final word on the matter.

“Hi, everyone. 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 and I know you love. I just realized that I’m not going to be able to continue Season 5, or into the future,” Costner says in the video. “It was something that really changed me. 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 that we’ve been able to develop, and I’ll see you at the movies.”

There have been a ton of delays regarding these final episodes of Yellowstone Season 5, as well as the potential future of the Taylor Sheridan series. Season 5 has been reported to be the end of the show, with a sequel series picking up where it leaves off with Matthew McConaughey and Michelle Pfeiffer in the lead roles.

So many of the questions, though, have revolved around Costner’s involvement. It was his work as Yellowstone‘s lead character that helped make it such a massive phenomenon in the first place. Initial rumors about him not returning for Season 5B suggested that Costner didn’t want to work the hours he was asked to work, and that he had put his new Western film series, Horizon: An American Saga, ahead of Yellowstone responsibilities. This summer, ahead of Horizon‘s premiere at Cannes, Costner himself set the record straight, saying that he showed up but Sheridan’s scripts weren’t ready, so production couldn’t begin.

“I made a contract for seasons five, six and seven,” Costner told Deadline. “In February, after a two- or three-month negotiation, they made another contract. They wanted to redo that one, and instead of seasons six and seven, it was 5A and 5B, and maybe we’ll do six. They weren’t able to make those. Horizon was set in the middle, but Yellowstone was first position. I fit [Horizon] into the gaps. They just kept moving their gaps.”

Without Costner returning to Yellowstone, Sheridan will need to figure out how to write John Dutton off of the series, which does not seem like an easy task.