Kevin Costner Says He Didn’t Even Know John Dutton Was in the New ‘Yellowstone’ Season

[Editor’s note: The following article contains spoilers for “Yellowstone” Season 5, Episode 9, “Desire Is All You Need.”]

Once a cowboy, always a cowboy.

Though Kevin Costner made a very public exit from the series earlier this year, it appears “Yellowstone” wasn’t quite finished with him, nor his character, ranching family patriarch John Dutton. In last night’s premiere, Dutton was found dead in apparent suicide, but clearly there are many questions still to be answered and truths to be discovered. Commenting on this reveal during a special live, town hall edition of “The Michael Smerconish Program” on SiriusXM, Costner admitted that he didn’t even know the second half of Season 5 was finally premiering.

“Well, I’m going to be perfectly honest. I didn’t know it was actually airing last night,” Costner said. “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. I’ve been seeing, but I didn’t realize yesterday was the thing. My focus has been on what I was having to do, and I’ve got a few calls to make. So you think — sometimes I’m like just a passenger in my life, you know, there’s a lot going on. And somebody said, you know, it played last night? And I said, ‘Hmm, okay.’ So no, I found out about it this morning actually.”

Unfortunately, Costner didn’t have time to catch the episode himself, but was relayed some information on what befell his character — information that made him even less interested in actually watching.

“I didn’t see it. I heard it’s a suicide, so that doesn’t make me want to rush to go see it,” said Costner.

Smerconish commented that John Dutton didn’t seem like a “suicide kind of guy” and indeed the episode implies it was actually a hit ordered out by adopted son Jamie Dutton, most likely vengeance for his father constantly stepping over him. Indeed, Costner also didn’t seem convinced Dutton’s death was a suicide, but seemed not to care too much one way or the other.

“Well, they’re pretty smart people,” Costner said of the creative time behind “Yellowstone,” including Taylor Sheridan. “Maybe it’s a red herring. Who knows? They’re very good. And they’ll figure that out.”

No word yet on when Costner’s “Horizon: An American Saga — Part 2” will finally be released, but according to Deadline, he’s already underway on a new project he plans to co-write and star in called “Headhunters.” According to the official synopsis, Costner will play “a washed-up American expat with a mysterious past who winds up living in Bali, Indonesia. He gathers a group of surfers led by a local photographer to find the perfect wave at an uncharted island — which winds up being the domicile of an ancient tribe of headhunters who are protecting their land at all costs.”