The Cast Of Yellowstone Can't Seem To Stay Out Of Trouble

As "Yellowstone" fans everywhere know by now, the middle name of every single Dutton ought to be "trouble." They carouse, they maraud, they brawl — they even murder, when the occasion calls for it. While the actors who play out the family's dramas don't get up to anything nearly as bad as their on-screen counterparts do, they've had to cope with some scandals in their time. This is, after all, a program where a major character met his permanent doom in an embarrassing fashion just because the lead actor and the show's producers couldn't come to terms on a proper filming schedule.

Over the show's five seasons, everything from controversial comments to lawsuits have made unwanted headlines for the cast of "Yellowstone." This is a group of actors who have had an unusually high number of issues — some minor, some major — during their careers, and in a couple of cases, it even ended up impacting the onscreen legacy of the Dutton family itself. Whether it happened before the show started or coincided with the meteoric rise of "Yellowstone," here's a rundown of why the show's cast keep getting attention for all the wrong reasons.

The behind-the-scenes battle between Kevin Costner and Taylor Sheridan that led to Costner's premature "Yellowstone" exit was reportedly sparked by a fight over how many filming dates the actor would need to work during the creation of Season 5 Part 2. Costner wanted to start working on his film "Horizon: An American Saga" and couldn't come to an agreement over a schedule, so he backed out of filming and announced his leave via an Instagram post. He later claimed that filming for the show was inconsistent. "We very rarely started when we said we would and we didn't finish when we said we would," he told GQ Magazine. 

Reports later circulated that Costner behaved in a demanding fashion, apparently rankling Sheridan by requesting creative control over his character. It was also said that he was only willing to shoot for a single week, claims that Costner's reps denied. Sheridan proceeded to write John off via an assassination in the bathroom of the governor's mansion. Though his kids act to honor their dad's legacy throughout the season, his name was posthumously tarnished when Beth revealed that John's last paramour, Summer (Piper Perabo), was not legally bound to serve out her sentence on the ranch as he had told her.

Costner later admitted that he didn't watch his character's ignominious demise. In the end, it was a divide that benefitted no one. Fans were upset that John's story came to an awkward end and that it cast a shadow over his past actions and the season itself. Perhaps the most frustrating thing about the whole situation is that the first part of "Horizon" became an enormous box office bomb, which has left the planned sequels in question.

Kevin Costner isn't the only member of the "Yellowstone" cast who has clashed with co-creator Taylor Sheridan. Cole Hauser, who played Rip Wheeler, launched a coffee brand called Free Rein in 2023 and Hauser was subsequently sued by Sheridan because he felt the logo was too similar to the one he uses for his lifestyle brand Bosque Ranch. The issue was that Bosque Ranch also had its own line of coffee, and with both labels featuring intertwined letters in the style of a cattle brand, Sheridan felt as though Hauser's product was intentionally similar. Per The Hollywood Reporter, the lawsuit alleged "trademark infringement, unfair competition and false advertising," stating that the logo for Free Rein was "confusingly similar to the BR Brand for virtually identical goods."

For a while it looked like the feud was going to rumble on, but Sheridan's legal team requested the suit be dropped and it was dismissed on December 20, 2024. As of this writing, Bosque Ranch's coffee, which had been sold through Community Coffee, has been discontinued. Meanwhile, Free Rein has expanded its offerings and partnerships and now sells coffee pods and merchandise. Apparently, there's no real bad blood between Hauser and Sheridan, as the former is set to star in a Rip and Beth-centered spin-off series produced and created by Sheridan.

Luke Grimes' big controversy took place before he was cast on "Yellowstone." After playing James Kent on "True Blood" in its sixth season, the actor abruptly backed out of the series and the part was recast with Nathan Parsons for Season 7. At the time, HBO claimed that Grimes left the series because he didn't approve of the creative direction in which James had been taken without giving any more info. So when James ended up leaving Jessica Hamby (Deborah Ann Woll) for a romance with Lafayette Reynolds (Nelsan Ellis), fans had some big and obvious questions.

It was subsequently reported through sources close to "True Blood" that the character choice Grimes disliked was the writers' decision to make James bisexual. He apparently didn't care if the attraction between the characters was one-sided, but balked at having James reciprocate Lafayette's feelings and allegedly refused to participate in same-sex kissing or love scenes. It was said that he asked the show's writers to change the script to reflect his request but was denied.

While the reason may seem surprising to "True Blood" fans, Grimes' publicist at the time denied it was factual, maintaining that he departed the show due to scheduling issues. But at least one of his co-stars didn't mind expressing their thoughts about the situation in a frank manner. Nelsan Ellis told Vulture that Grimes' issues with James' character did indeed have to do with his romance with Lafayette. "I'm over him. You quit your job because you don't want to play a gay part? [...] You make a statement, a big statement, when you go, 'I don't want to play this part because it's gay.'"

Kelsey Asbille, who played Monica Long Dutton in "Yellowstone," told reporters that she is part Cherokee while doing press for the series. "It's been a blessing to get to explore Native culture," she told W Magazine. "As a person of mixed race, as you get older it matters more to you who you are and where you come from. So to be able to get in touch with that side of my heritage has been amazing." An earlier article in The New York Times promoting the 2017 film "Wind River" (another Sheridan project) said that while Asbille didn't grow up in a Native community, she had Eastern Band Cherokee heritage. However, Indigenous actors and activists have questioned Asbille's claim of having Cherokee blood.

Actor Adam Beach ("The Birds Who Fear Death") called out Asbille and the show in a now-deleted Instagram post, saying, "Yellowstone is telling the world that there are no Native actresses capable of leading a TV show. Unless your great-great-great grandparents are Cherokee." An article published on the Native American website Pechanga.net noted that actor and producer Sonny Skyhawk contacted the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians for confirmation of Asbille's enrollment as a member of the Eastern band of Cherokee. As Skyhawk himself pointed out, "The only legally recognized entity that can prove and declare one's Native identity is the tribal nation that anyone claims." The organization told the website that Asbille "is not now nor has she ever been an enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. No documentation was found in our records to support any claim that she descends from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians."

"Yellowstone" is filled to the brim with tough cowboy types who love to wax lyrical upon the glories and pains of life in the saddle. Stuntman, rodeo rider, and character actor Forrie J. Smith definitely fits that description — but he's also tough on people who wear masks, and has publicly refused to attend awards ceremonies that require vaccine mandates. He first made the news in 2022 when he posted a now-deleted Instagram video explaining why he wouldn't be attending that year's Screen Actors Guild Awards ceremony. "I mean no offense to anyone. I'm not vaccinated, and it's a requirement to be vaccinated. I'm not vaccinated, I will not get vaccinated," he said (per Variety). "I've never had a flu shot. I never will. I believe they compromise your immunities... It's just my beliefs. I just don't believe in that stuff."

He would later reveal that he feels uncomfortable being around people who wear masks. In an Instagram video he posted in March 2024, he said that he had just been kicked off a plane in Houston, Texas after telling the staff that he didn't want to sit next to someone who was wearing a mask. According to the actor, the airline told him he was being removed from the flight for being drunk. "Yeah, I've been drinking — I've been sitting in the airport for three hours. But I ain't drunk. But they've thrown me off the plane because I'm drunk, because you people won't stand up and tell everybody what bulls*** this is." Smith has stayed quiet on the topic since, preferring to pontificate about cowboy values instead. 

"Yellowstone" co-creator Taylor Sheridan has never been one to shy away from being honest in public, and he's gotten into trouble more than once thanks to his sharp tongue. In 2017, when he was promoting his movie "Wind River," he spoke his mind on then-president Donald Trump during a candid interview. "Can we just impeach that motherf***er right now? Like, what are we — I don't understand," he said while speaking to DP/30. "It's just, it's so embarrassing."

When asked about the quote years later, Sheridan said that he didn't remember saying it. "I was mad about everything. Twelve-hour press junkets with no food or water will do that to you," he told The Atlantic when reporter Sridhar Pappu brought up the quotes in 2022. According to Pappu, Paramount Network publicists didn't like his line of questioning and actually threatened to cancel his upcoming trip to the set of "Yellowstone" if the stuff about Sheridan's past Trump comments made it into his story. This was apparently a bluff: Pappu included them anyway, but his set visit wasn't canceled.

It makes sense that Paramount was reportedly so keen to have the Trump questions axed from the interview when you consider how popular Sheridan's shows are with Republican viewers. In a July 2022 article about "Yellowstone," The New York Times called it "the most red-state show on television," and Le Monde called Sheridan the "showrunner darling of Trump's America" as recently as January 2025.

In 2023, Taylor Sheridan rankled Indigenous Americans by claiming his movie "Wind River" had made life better for Native women. "It actually changed a law, where you can now be prosecuted if you're a U.S. citizen for committing rape on an Indian reservation, and there's now a database for missing murdered Indigenous women," he told The Hollywood Reporter. The law Sheridan appears to be referring to, the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), was actually first passed in 1994 and was renewed repeatedly before being reauthorized by then-president Joe Biden in 2022.

Several advocacy groups and actors spoke out about Sheridan's claim that "Wind River" had anything to do with this law. "Sheridan's claim is not only false, it's harmful," the Native women-led social justice organization IllumiNative posted to their Instagram. "This is yet another attempt to erase Native peoples from our own stories and ignores the decades of intense organizing and profound impact Native women, survivors, advocates, Tribal leaders and many more across Indian Country had in the passage of this law."

Elsewhere, Jana Schmieding (a Lakota actor and writer known for the likes of "Reservation Dogs," "The Great North," and "Spirit Rangers") told Yahoo's In The Know that she wasn't surprised to hear Sheridan taking credit for the strides that have been made when it comes to the protection of Native women. "None of it is surprising, and all of it is offensive," Schmieding said. "And that's colonizer behavior. It's also 'white man in Hollywood with power' behavior."

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).

PaleyFest, the biggest television festival on the calendar, is usually a time for celebration for TV fans. It's a fun event where showrunners give viewers insight into how the shows are mounted and what's ahead, and the actors chat about the characters they play. When "Yellowstone" got a panel spot for the festival in 2023 (which ran from March 31 to April 4), fans were promised the moon — and received little back. The lineup was originally slated to include Taylor Sheridan, executive producer David Glasser, Kevin Costner, Kelly Reilly, Cole Hauser, Luke Grimes, Kelsey Asbille, Wes Bentley, Gil Birmingham, and Jacki Weaver. Instead, fans got Mo Brings Plenty, Wendy Moniz (who defended Costner's behavior), Josh Lucas, and Dawn Olivieri. All fine actors, to be sure, but supporting pillars of the series, not the mainstays.

Paramount Network development president Keith Cox also showed up, and while he tried to excite the audience with tidbits about Costner's then-nebulous status, which drew some applause, the panel was ultimately a disaster. Shouts of "Where are they?" broke out and audience members came away frustrated. "Many fans paid a lot of money to see the cast of 'Yellowstone.' Some families traveled by planes, others drove hours just to get to Hollywood in order to see their favorite 'Yellowstone' actors," one fan fumed on the Deadline message board. Only Kelly Reilly made a statement about skipping the event. "I was filming in the UK at the time, and let them know in January I wouldn't be able to attend," she wrote on Instagram after someone asked about her no-show. "I was sorry to hear my name was still on the list of attendees, as it is unfair to our fans."

Q'orianka Kilcher made a strong impression in "Yellowstone" even though her time on the show was brief. She appeared eight times as Angela Blue Thunder, Thomas Rainwater's tough-as-nails business consultant. But Kilcher ultimately had to stand up for herself when she was accused of disability fraud. This came about when she filed a workers' compensation claim after injuring her right shoulder and neck on the set of "Dora and the Lost City of Gold." The California Department of Insurance accused the actress of breaking state law by continuing to collect disability benefits while working on "Yellowstone."

The CDI claimed that Kilcher committed two felony counts of workers' compensation insurance fraud, saying that she had informed a doctor she wasn't able to work but continued to pull a paycheck by acting. She accumulated $96,838 in benefits over the span of nearly two years, From October 14, 2019 to September 9, 2021. The department also said Kilcher stopped treatment for her injury and ceased communicating with the insurance provider and doctor attached to the case. Kilcher pleaded not guilty to the accusations and the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office dropped all charges against her in February 2023.

"To date, Kilcher has maintained her innocence and today's news exonerates her," a spokesperson for the actor said in a statement (via People). "Despite suffering a serious and life-altering traumatic injury she endured while filming 'Dora and the Lost City of Gold,' Kilcher is enthusiastic about her new slate of projects and is hoping to use this moment to shed light on the experiences of other workers who have been injured in the workplace." Kilcher herself vowed to become an advocate for transparency in workers' rights in a statement released on the same day.

The last controversy on our list is pretty mild compared to everything we've already covered, but in the thick of the Taylor Sheridan versus Kevin Costner drama, it was reported by Puck that things got so down and dirty between the parties that even Costner's personal assistant got involved. It happened — where else? — on Instagram, with Glenn Kleczkowski (who has worked with Costner for years and was a production associate on "Yellowstone") allegedly mocking Sheridan's crime drama "Tulsa King," which stars Sylvester Stallone as a Mafia capo who starts assembling a new mob set-up in Oklahoma following his release from prison.

"Stick to westerns, bro. You don't know S*** about THIS life. Stay in your lane, country boy. I'm actually embarrassed for you as a writer and creator," the post from Kleczkowski (who is also a co-producer on Costner's "Horizon: An American Saga" project) allegedly read. Since he has erased all the content from his Instagram, Kleczkowski's statement is no longer publicly viewable. But it definitely stands as an example of how much controversy the show's actors had to wade through over the years — and how much of it was self-inflicted.

As it happens, "Tulsa King" has also been the source of controversy, with some disturbing allegations made against Stallone by some background actors.