Yellowstone star Kevin Costner shares rare photo with six of his children

Kevin Costner shared a rare photo of him with six of his seven children. Photo / Kevin Costner / Instagram

Yellowstone star Kevin Costner has shared a rare snap of him and his children to commemorate the festive season.

The actor and filmmaker, 69, shared several pictures of himself and his family to Instagram on Tuesday following Thanksgiving, a national holiday in the US that celebrates the achievements of the past year.

The first photo showed Costner and six of his seven children – Annie, 40, Lily, 38, Joe, 36, Cayden, 17, Hayes, 15, and Grace, 14 – smiling together on a picturesque beach.

“Hoping you guys had a wonderful Thanksgiving with the people you love most. At the top of my ‘grateful for’ list are the many really, really special memories I’ve gotten to make with my kids this year. Here’s to a holiday season dedicated to making more,” Costner captioned the snaps, which also included a glimpse of the premiere of Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1.

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His 28-year-old son Liam, whom he shares with former partner Bridget Rooney, was not pictured.

Costner welcomed his three eldest children during his 16-year marriage to first wife Cindy Silva, and shares his three youngest with second wife Christine Baumgartner.

He and Baumgartner’s “nightmare” divorce was finalised in February after 18 years of marriage.

The sweet post comes less than a month after Costner’s storyline on the neo-Western drama series Yellowstone came to a shocking conclusion. As well as portraying the main role of Montana governor John Dutton III – which garnered him the 2023 Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series: Drama – Costner had served as an executive producer.

The show, which premiered in 2018, follows the Duttons and their family drama at the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch: a large ranch in Montana that borders the Broken Rock Indian Reservation and Yellowstone National Park.

Costner’s character was officially written out of the show during the November 10 episode due to scheduling conflicts with his self-financed passion project, Horizon: An American Saga. The first instalment of the four-part Western film series was released earlier this year to lukewarm reviews and a disappointing box-office performance. As a result, the theatrical release for the second film, which was slated to be released just weeks later, was scrapped, and it instead premiered at Venice Film Festival.

Kevin Costner attends the photocall for Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 2 during the 81st Venice International Film Festival at Palazzo del Casino on September 7, 2024 in Venice, Italy. Photo / Getty Images

In June, Costner opened up to People magazine about the difficulties of co-parenting after a divorce: a battle he first encountered following his divorce from Silva in 1994 and which he is now navigating for a second time.

“It was something I had to think about 20 years ago, when I agreed to be married [again],” he explained. “I had been divorced once, and that was rough with kids.”

He added: “If you’re in a storm and you’re the only one up on deck holding the wheel, and you’re just trying to get the rain and saltwater out of your eyes, you couldn’t let go of the wheel. I just haven’t been able to let go of the wheel.”