Kevin Costner Breaks Silence On Yellowstone Exit, Hints At Pay Dispute, Creative 'Issues' — and A Lawsuit

Kevin Costner is speaking out about his decision to leave Yellowstone, offering a peek behind the curtain at the "long, hard-fought negotiation" between him and the show's producers.

Costner's comments came as he testified on Friday at a child support hearing connected to his pending divorce from his wife Christine Baumgartner. On the witness stand, Costner said that he had every intention of returning for a sixth season of the Paramount Network hit, but "I couldn't help them any more," People magazine reports. "We tried to negotiate," but "they offered me less money than previous seasons," he claimed, adding that "there were issues with the creative" as well.

The actor noted that his upcoming feature film Horizon, which he will direct and star in, was also a sticking point, as the decision to break Yellowstone's fifth season into two parts interfered with the film's shooting schedule. "A show I was only doing once a year, I was now doing twice," he testified, per our sister site Deadline. He planned to shoot Horizon between Season 5's two parts, but "they still hadn't finished" shooting the first half in time, he claims, and there were "no scripts written" for the second half, either. (TVLine has reached out to Paramount Network for comment.)

Instead of returning for Season 6, Yellowstone — starring Costner as ranch patriarch John Dutton — will instead end with Season 5, with the upcoming second half serving as the show's swan song. (Those episodes are expected to debut later this year, but no premiere date has been set.) However, a spinoff that will continue the Dutton story and "[pick] up where Yellowstone leaves off" has been ordered by Paramount Network and will also stream on Paramount+.

Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan addressed Costner's exit in June, backing up Costner's assertions about Horizon: "His movie seems to be a great priority to him, and he wants to shift focus. I sure hope [the movie is] worth it — and that it's a good one." Sheridan added that Costner's departure "doesn't alter" the ultimate fate of his character John Dutton, "but it truncates it." Don't expect a brutal death scene, though: "I don't do f–k-you car crashes."

As for Costner, he indicated that he may have to return to the witness stand to resolve the dispute surrounding his Yellowstone exit: "I will probably go to court over it."

Are you taking Costner's side in this fight? And will you watch a Yellowstone spinoff without him? Mosey on down to the comments to give us your thoughts.