Kevin Costner Isn't Happy About His Soured Reputation (& Has An Odd Way Of Dealing With It)

Between the controversy surrounding his drama-filled exit from "Yellowstone" and the end of his marriage to Christine Baumgartner, actor and Oscar-winning filmmaker Kevin Costner's reputation has definitely taken a hit in recent years. Not only that, but alleged details have continued to trickle out regarding the "Yellowstone" of it all, and they don't exactly paint the "Field of Dreams" alum in the best light. As one might expect, Costner isn't particularly happy about this. But while that response isn't surprising, what is surprising is the way he's apparently planning on dealing with the bad press — searching for treasure. Literally.

But let's back up for just a moment. It's long been rumored that Costner's exit from "Yellowstone" was the culmination of a power struggle between the actor (who was also an executive producer) and showrunner Taylor Sheridan. Amid his exit from the show in June 2024, Costner denied reports that he had thrown his weight around on the show's set during an interview with People. "I loved the show," he said at the time. "I liked the people on the show. I liked what it was about. I love that world." Try as he might, however, Costner just couldn't escape the rumors.

An October 2025 report from The Hollywood Reporter recounts an alleged, previously unpublicized incident where Costner and co-star Wes Bentley nearly came to blows over Costner's attempts to undermine Sheridan. An anonymous witness told the outlet that after Bentley metaphorically pushed back on this, literal shoves followed. "Kevin didn't like that, and he lunged at him. No fists were thrown, but they were in each other's faces, pushing and shoving and just getting hot until they had to be separated," the source said, adding that Costner and Bentley's co-star Kelly Reilly had been greatly upset by the altercation. His solution to the bad press? Diving for gold while fishing for good headlines. 

Picture it: You're one of the most famous actors in Hollywood. Your reputation has soured somewhat following your controversial exit from a popular prestige TV series, and you're perturbed by the new alleged details being published online. How do you mount a comeback? Well, if you're Kevin Costner, you decide to go searching for buried treasure, which is certainly one option.

In October 2025, shortly after The Hollywood Reporter published its exposé on Costner, a source told Page Six that the former "Yellowstone" star was "very angry" over the report. Costner has apparently become a real-life pirate of the Caribbean (eat your heart out, Johnny Depp). "Kevin Costner is on a deep-sea diving binge to discover sunken treasure," the source said. "He found gold coins and emeralds recently in the Caribbean. Now he's shopping a TV series on finding sunken treasure around the world." Of course, just because Costner is selling doesn't mean anyone is buying. At the time of Page Six's report on October 14, no network or studio had agreed to fund the project, according to the outlet's source.

Notably, in addition to all the "Yellowstone" drama, struggling to find funding has also become a common theme for Costner in recent times. As The Hollywood Reporter noted in its initial report, Costner mortgaged a vacant property of his to help fund his four-part "Horizon: An American Saga" film series, the first entry of which fell well short of making back its production budget at the box office. Maybe that treasure was the universe's way of reimbursing him.