Kevin Costner refused to minimize his Whitney Houston eulogy at her funeral

Kevin Costner hardly ever stopped remaining protective of his friend and castmate Whitney Houston after they starred collectively in The Bodyguard — not even just after her tragic demise two a long time later on.

On the most current episode of Dax Shepard’s Armchair Pro podcast, Costner seemed again on his bond with Houston and the emotional eulogy he sent at her funeral, which he refused to shorten regardless of timing constraints.

“I had been functioning on this speech… and I attempted to compile anything I desired to do and lastly crafted this speech,” Costner, 69, recalled. “Someone stated, ‘CNN’s here, they wouldn’t head if your remarks were held shorter due to the fact they are likely to have commercials.’ And I explained, ‘They can get in excess of that. They can play the commercial though I’m chatting, I really don’t care.'”

Costner wished to make guaranteed he reported almost everything he “necessary to say” in his speech. “I begun and about 17 minutes later on I was done,” he included.

The actor was a single of 8 speakers at Houston’s funeral in 2012, following she died from an accidental drowning. He was invited to converse owing to his near romance with the singer, which commenced when they made The Bodyguard alongside one another in 1992. The romantic drama starred Houston as a renowned singer who is haunted by a stalker and falls in appreciate with her bodyguard, performed by Costner.

Although Houston and Costner remained near around the up coming 20 many years, he was originally hesitant to speak at her funeral. It was only many thanks to Dionne Warwick’s encouragement that he at last mentioned of course.

“I could come to feel the fat on her, now it can be shifted to me,” Costner remembered on the podcast. “What am I likely to say about this minor girl? [I] went again to that church in Newark and it was crammed. It was electrical. There have been two bands participating in, the church was alive. It was like, growth!”

In addition to starring in The Bodyguard, Houston co-government-manufactured and recorded 6 new tunes for the soundtrack, which include her strike go over of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You,” which stays just one of the greatest-selling physical singles of all time and gained the Grammy for Record of the Year in 1994. (The soundtrack itself gained Album of the Yr.)

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“I never believe we are going to at any time fail to remember when that very little tune came out, that [Houston] just blew up,” Costner recalled in 2022. “She sang the initial component of it a cappella and musically the planet was never the exact same. We have a instant of her in that movie we will never ever at any time forget that and I imagine that when flicks are performing at their very best, which is what can come about.”