Kevin Costner’s reign as Yellowstone’s hard-bitten patriarch John Dutton didn’t just redefine the modern Western—it minted a TV juggernaut and a payday reportedly topping $1 million per episode by the time he rode off.

Kevin Costner has been cashing movie-star checks for decades, but Yellowstone turned him into a TV salary benchmark and then some.

 

 

Let’s break down what he actually made on the show, how that fits into the bigger picture of his bank account, and why his fortune has dipped lately despite the Dutton bump.

Costner signed on to Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone in 2018 as ranch boss John Dutton and, right out of the gate, he was the show’s top earner. Industry reports put his starting rate at about $500,000 per episode, and as the series exploded into a ratings machine, his quote went way up. By Season 5, he was reportedly pulling in around $1.3 million per episode, which put him among the highest-paid actors on television, period.

 

 

His exit became one of those inside-baseball Hollywood stories that turned messy fast. The public version goes like this: after four powerhouse seasons, he chose not to return in full for Season 5. From there, the reporting splintered. Some outlets even claimed John Dutton was killed off in the Season 5 premiere. Either way you slice the rumor mill, the Costner era on Yellowstone is over, and he left with a per-episode number north of a million.

 

 

Here’s the twist: that $200 million estimate is actually lower than the roughly $250 million figure floated in 2024. Two big reasons are cited. First, his very public split from Christine Baumgartner, after which he agreed to pay $63,209 per month in child support. Second, Horizon: An American Saga, his passion project Western epic that struggled commercially out of the gate. Costner put about $38 million of his own money into it and still sounds determined to see the multi-part plan through.

Bottom line: Yellowstone paid Costner like the TV A-lister he is, but real life and a risky, self-financed Western epic have tugged his net worth down from last year’s peak. Classic Costner move, honestly – bet big on a story he believes in and play the long game.