Before Kevin Costner played John Dutton on Yellowstone, he played Clark Kent’s adoptive father—and it turns out, he may have a superpower of his own: Discretion.
Costner’s estranged wife, Christine Baumgartner, alleged in court documents obtained by Us Weekly that he was so secretive about his future on Yellowstone that he never even told her if he’d return to the Paramount smash for Season 6.
Baumgartner’s attorneys claim that Costner “refused to answer questions about whether he was offered the opportunity” to appear in Yellowstone Season 6 “or if he simply chose to quit.”
Baumgartner, 49, filed for divorce from Costner, 68, in early May after 18 years of marriage, and the pair have been in a contentious court battle ever since over child support payments for their sons Cayden, 16, and Hayes, 14, and 13-year-old daughter Grace.
Much about the Oscar winner’s finances have been aired in the court battle, including his impressive Yellowstone income, which peaked at $1.25 million per episode for Season 5.
Costner famously filmed the first half of Yellowstone Season 5, which premiered in November 2022, but reports soon emerged that he allegedly refused to return to film episodes for the second installment of the season in favor of filming his four-movie series Horizon.
At the time, Costner’s attorney pooh-poohed the rumors, but Paramount Network soon announced that Yellowstone would end with Season 5 and that a sequel series was greenlit and will reportedly air after Yellowstone’s series finale.
“My last conversation with Kevin was that he had this passion project he wanted to direct,” Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan told The Hollywood Reporter in June. “He and the network were arguing about when he could be done with Yellowstone. I said, ‘We can certainly work a schedule toward [his preferred exit date],’ which we did.”Sheridan said of the various reports around Costner’s exit, “My opinion of Kevin as an actor hasn’t altered … and I’ve never had an issue with Kevin that he and I couldn’t work out on the phone. But once lawyers get involved, then people don’t get to talk to each other and start saying things that aren’t true and attempt to shift blame based on how the press or public seem to be reacting. He took a lot of this on the chin and I don’t know that anyone deserves it.”
Still, Sheridan wasn’t thrilled with how it all shook out, despite saying that John Dutton’s fate within the series hasn’t necessarily changed from its planned course.
“I’m disappointed,” he explained. “It truncates the closure of his character. It doesn’t alter it, but it truncates it.”