Kevin Costner’s ‘Ugly’ Feud With the Palace About Princess Diana, ‘The Bodyguard 2,’ and Which Royal He Turned to for Help
Kevin Costner vs. the British royal family. That’s what happened in the wake of Princess Diana’s death when it became public that the actor and royal had been in talks about The Bodyguard 2. Looking back on the drama in an interview, Costner, 69, recalled how the royal family “turned on” him. Plus, who he turned to for advice. Hint: It’s the same British royal he still respects to this day.
The royal family ‘turned on’ Costner after Diana died amid ‘The Bodyguard 2’ reports
Costner opened up about how it became him against the British royal family following Diana’s 1997 death. On “The Howard Stern Show” the Horizon: An American Saga star confirmed he’d been working on a sequel to 1992’s The Bodyguard with Diana as his co-star.
After her death, however, he became the subject of palace attacks when the royals didn’t believe Diana would have ever agreed to star in a movie.
“When Diana passed, about a year later, it had leaked out that I was prepping ‘Bodyguard 2’ with her,” Costner said. “And what happened was, the royal family kind of turned on me a little bit.”
“Like, ‘No, that’s not true.’ And it got actually kind of ugly,” Costner continued. “And I let it go for a while. It just got uglier and uglier.”
Kevin Costner asked Sarah Ferguson for advice on how to deal with the palace
The Yellowstone alum continued, saying he turned to Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, now 64, who initially connected him with Diana, for advice on how to navigate the situation.
“Finally, I called up Sarah, and said, ‘Sarah, you need to tell me who is leading the charge there on this thing,’” he recalled.
He then went on to share how Ferguson, now 64, warned him against talking to people at the palace directly. “She goes, ‘No, no, no, Kev, you don’t want to talk to them,’” to which he replied, “‘Yes I do.’”
So, that’s what the Oscar winner did, he got on the phone to the palace. “I called them up, and I said, ‘I’m telling you something, you need to stop because it is true. And if you don’t stop, I’m gonna start. Because it was.’”
Plans for ‘The Bodyguard’ sequel were scrapped after Diana’s death
Alas, The Bodyguard 2 never happened. Diana died in a car crash in Paris, France, on Aug. 31, 1997, at the age of 36. Following her death, Costner decided the movie couldn’t go on without her.
“I could not replace Princess Di,” he said. Costner’s comments came after he first addressed his scrapped plans for The Bodyguard 2 in 2012 in which he revealed he’d wanted it to include Diana’s fraught relationship with the paparazzi.
As for how he got Diana onboard, it began with talking to the Duchess of York. “What had happened was, I started talking to her through Sarah,” Costner recalled. “And I said, ‘Look, I’m gonna do ‘Bodyguard 2′ and I think I can build this around you. Would you be interested?’”
Diana’s response? “She goes, ‘Yes. My life’s about to change.’ I didn’t really go into depth with it, but I thought I understood what she was saying.”
At the time Costner proposed the movie to Diana, she was separated from her husband, the now-King Charles III, and in the process of finalizing their 1996 divorce.
Calling Diana “very sweet,” he revealed the second time they spoke she asked if the sequel would have a kissing scene. “I said, ‘Do you want there to be one?’ She said, ‘Yeah,’ and I said, ‘Then we’ll do that,’” Costner recalled.
“I wasn’t going to make the full romance about her,” he added. “But there was going to be a moment that we did. And she was so sweet about this.”
