Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner Michael Caulfield/WireImage/Getty Images
Kevin Costner has fond memories of Whitney Houston on the set of their 1992 hit, The Bodyguard.
“I loved her — it’s not like this giant mystery — so I knew that she should be the one,” Costner, 69, said of casting Houston in the lead role during the Monday, June 3, episode of the “Armchair Expert” podcast.
The actor recalled director Mick Jackson being “afraid” of Houston, so Costner “started to guide her” and told the late singer “not to bring an entourage” during production.
“And I wasn’t trying to usurp my director, but I had made a promise to her, not to f—ing him,” Costner, who also produced the film, explained, noting that he assured Houston the film would perform well at the box office, despite poor test screenings.
A legendary life cut short. Whitney Houston‘s vocals were so powerful that producer Clive Davis famously called her “The Voice” — and her fellow singers agreed she more than deserved the title. “Whitney wasn’t just a singer with a beautiful voice. She was a true musician,” Faith Evans — who collaborated with Houston on the […]
“I was always gonna keep my promise to her,” he added.
Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner in “THE BODYGUARD.” (1992) Cover Images
Despite Costner requesting that Houston not bring bodyguards offscreen, he told the icon that his demand wouldn’t hinder anyone’s safety. “[I said], ‘I’m gonna take care of you if there’s a person important to you’ — turned out to be Robyn Crawford — I said, ‘Let’s have Robyn with you,’” he recalled. “And that’s how we started.”
“I don’t know what it was, but we had a moment, and I realized that the world had a higher idea of who we were, so I basically embraced it,” he explained. “I was her imaginary bodyguard.”
Elsewhere in the podcast episode, the Yellowstone actor opened up about refusing to shorten Houston’s eulogy after she died at the age of 48 in 2012.
Kevin Costner has welcomed seven children with three partners over the years. The California native started dating Cindy Silva in 1975 while they attended California State University, Fullerton. The pair tied the knot three years later and went on to welcome three little ones — Annie, Lily and Joe — born in 1984, 1986 and […]
“I had been working on this speech,” he said. “And I tried to compile everything I wanted to do and finally crafted this speech.”
Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner in “THE BODYGUARD.” (1992) Cover Images
He recalled: “Somebody said, ‘CNN’s here, they wouldn’t mind if your remarks were kept shorter because they’re going to have commercials.’ And I said, ‘They can get over that. They can play the commercial while I’m talking, I don’t care.’”
Houston, who had a long history of addiction, was found dead in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton. The Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office later concluded that she died from drowning combined with the “effects of atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine use.”
Houston had been staying at the hotel to perform at Clive Davis’ annual pre-Grammys party, which was canceled after her death.
Three years later, Houston’s daughter, Bobbi Kristina, whom she shared with ex-husband Bobby Brown, died after being found unconscious in a bathtub at age 22.
