Nearly 30 years after the shocking death of Princess Diana, actor Kevin Costner reflects on the “ugly” feud he had with the Royal Family following the devastating historic moment.
During his appearance on The Howard Stern Show, Costner recalled the Princess being planned to co-star in the sequel to his hit 1992 film The Bodyguard.
However, following Diana’s death in August 1997, the project was officially scrapped. Kevin Costner ended up in a feud with the royals because they didn’t believe the late Princess of Wales was willing to do a Hollywood film project.
“When Diana passed, about a year later it had leaked out that I was prepping Bodyguard 2 with her,” he explained. “And what happened was, the royal family kind of turned on me a little bit.”
Kevin Costner recalled the conversation he had with the royals about Diana’s involvement in the project. “Like, ‘No, that’s not true.’ And it got actually kind of ugly,” Costner pointed out. “And I let it go for a while. It just got uglier and uglier.”
Costner also said that he ended up reaching out to Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, who initially connected him with Diana. Ferguson had recently gone through her divorce with King Charles III’s brother, Prince Andrew. He asked her about who was encouraging the feud.
“Finally I called up Sarah, and said, ‘Sarah, you need to tell me who is leading the charge there on this thing. She goes, ‘No, no, no, Kev, you don’t want to talk to them.’ I said, ‘Yes I do.’” he said. “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.’”
Kevin Costner Recalls How He Convinced Princess Diana to Agree to Do ‘The Bodyguard 2’
Also during his chat with Howard Stern, Kevin Costner revealed how he convinced Princess Diana to agree to do The Bodyguard 2 with him.
“What had happened was, I started talking to her through Sarah,” Costner pointed out.”And I said, ‘Look, I’m gonna do ‘Bodyguard 2′ and I think I can build this around you. Would you be interested?’ ” he recalled. “And 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.”
Costner described Princess Diana as being “very sweet” as they talked about the project. “The second time we talked she said, ‘Is there going to be a kissing scene?’ I said, ‘Do you want there to be one?’ She said, ‘Yeah,’ and I said, ‘Then we’ll do that.’ I wasn’t going to make the full romance about her. But there was going to be a moment that we did. And she was so sweet about this.”
Following her tragic death, Costner said he couldn’t go forward with the project. “I could not replace Princess Di,” he added.