Kevin Costner shared a sweet memory with his late friend, Whitney Houston, on her 70th birthday.
After finding a rare behind-the-scenes photo of them together on the set of their 1992 film The Bodyguard, Yellowstone recalled their close friendship and expressed gratitude for celebrating another year around the sun.
“This photo reminds me how lucky I am to have another birthday,” she wrote on her Instagram Story while sharing an image that was uploaded to her account, managed by her estate. “We lost that light when we lost Whitney.”
In the image, the two-time Oscar winner can be seen smiling alongside the pop icon, who died in 2012 at age 48, and stylist Ellin LaVar.
The Houston property captioned the image: “Happy birthday to Kevin Costner!” A behind-the-scenes photo from The Bodyguard with Kevin, Whitney and Ellin LaVar, Whitney’s stylist for the film.
Earlier in the day, he shared an adorable childhood throwback of him wearing a cowboy outfit.
Kevin Costner shared a sweet memory with his late friend, Whitney Houston, on her 70th birthday.
“Thank you all for the birthday wishes,” he captioned the post. ‘If you can believe it, this is me. I started following the cowboy life as soon as I could walk, and I still do it here. Here’s to another year keeping our eyes on our dreams.”
Last year, Costner revealed that CNN tried to get him to shorten the eulogy he planned to deliver for Whitney Houston at her 2012 funeral.
While appearing on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast, the actor claimed that the news network asked him to cut his tribute to Houston so it could work during commercial breaks.
In the end, he insisted that he was not willing to remove a word from his eulogy and challenged CNN to cut to a commercial in the middle of his speech.
Costner was one of eight people who spoke at Houston’s funeral, which was held in Newark, New Jersey.
The legendary singer was found dead in a bathtub on February 11, 2012, just hours before attending Clive Davis’ annual pre-Grammy Awards party.
It was later determined that he had died from accidental drowning due to a combination of chronic cocaine abuse and heart disease.
Toxicology reports later indicated that Houston had used cocaine shortly before her death, and that she also had Benadryl, the benzodiazepine Xanax, cannabis and the muscle relaxant Flexeril in her system.

After finding a rare behind-the-scenes photo of them together on the set of their 1992 film The Bodyguard, Yellowstone recalled their close friendship and expressed gratitude for celebrating another year around the sun.

“We lost so much light when we lost Whitney,” he wrote on his Instagram Story while sharing a memory of them together.
While speaking about his contribution to the memorial service, Costner told Shepard that issues about his speech, which lasted just under 20 minutes, arose shortly after he put the finishing touches on it.
“I had been working on this speech… and I tried to put together everything I wanted to do and finally put together this speech,” he explained. “Someone said, ‘CNN is here, they wouldn’t mind if their comments were shorter because they’re going to have commercials.'”
But Costner wasn’t interested in giving his former co-star an abbreviated eulogy to appease CNN’s commercial desires.
‘I said, ‘You can get over that.’ You can play the commercial while I’m talking, I don’t care,” he recalled saying.
It is unclear whether CNN or other cable news channels ultimately removed his speech to air commercials or whether they aired his text in its entirety.
The Horizon star recalled the discomfort she felt before giving her speech, as she was worried about going on too long even for some of the attendees or other speakers.
‘There were some people who really wanted to talk, and they were staring at me. What was I going to say?’ Costner recalled. “I started and about 17 minutes later I finished.”

Earlier in the day, he shared an adorable throwback from his childhood while thanking fans for their birthday wishes and reflecting on “following the cowboy life as soon as” he could walk.

“Thank you all for the birthday wishes,” he captioned the post. ‘If you can believe it, this is me. I started following the cowboy life as soon as I could walk, and I still do it here. Here’s to another year keeping our eyes focused on our dreams’ (seen June 24, 2024)
Costner worked with Houston on his 1992 romantic drama The Bodyguard, in which the singer bolstered her authentic performance by playing a lookalike pop star who was threatened by a crazed stalker.
Costner played a former Secret Service agent turned bodyguard hired to protect Houston’s character, although his romantic feelings threaten to get in the way of his duty.
The film earned mixed reviews, but was very popular among viewers. It became the second highest-grossing film of 1992 and at the time was the tenth highest-grossing film of all time.
The Houston soundtrack was also a huge success, becoming the best-selling soundtrack and the best-selling album by a woman.
It featured Houston’s version of Dolly Parton’s I Will Always Love You, which became closely associated with her.
The single spent 14 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, which broke a record at the time.