Kevin Costner refused to shorten his memorable eulogy to Whitney Houston

• Kevin Costner refused to shorten his eulogy at Whitney Houston’s funeral in 2012 despite requests.
• Costner was initially reluctant to speak, but agreed after Dionne Warwick personally asked him.
• Costner’s 17-minute eulogy highlighted their connection to “The Bodyguard” and became a viral moment.

On the latest episode of Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” podcast, Kevin Costner revealed that moments before delivering his moving eulogy at Whitney Houston’s funeral in 2012, he was asked to shorten his speech. He refused.

“I’m sitting in this row and someone said to me, ‘CNN is here, they wouldn’t mind if your remarks were shorter because they’re going to have commercials,'” recalled Costner, who played alongside Houston in the 1992 hit film “The Bodyguard.” “And I said, ‘They can get over it. They can play the commercial while I’m talking, I don’t care.'”

In the days after Houston died at age 48 from an accidental drowning, Costner was asked to comment on his former teammate, but never accepted. It wasn’t until Dionne Warwick, the famous singer who is also Houston’s cousin, called him and asked him to speak at the Houston Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey, that Costner finally agreed. .

“That’s the exact thing I didn’t want to do, I just said yes,” Costner said. “I could feel the weight on her, now it’s transferred to me. What am I going to say about this little girl?”

Costner said he spent a week working on what he was going to say.

“I tried to put together everything I wanted to do and finally wrote this speech,” he said.

Although he admitted that he “really stood out” as one of the few white people in attendance, and now had to worry that his speech was too long after the remark that CNN had covered it, he put all that aside.

“It was electric,” Costner said, reflecting on the setting. “There were two bands playing, the church was alive. It was like, boom!”

Before Costner’s moving 17-minute eulogy, few people knew how close he and Houston had been while filming “The Bodyguard” together. Costner revealed in his eulogy that they were both bonded by their Baptist upbringings and that he forced Warner Bros. to postpone production of the film for a year while Houston was on tour so she could play the role.

When Costner finished taking the podium, everyone in the church stood up and applauded.

“I don’t know what it was, but we had a moment,” Costner said on the podcast, reflecting on his collaboration with Houston. “I realized that the world had a higher idea of ​​who we were, and I accepted it: I was its imaginary bodyguard.”