By now, if you’re a “Yellowstone” fan (Yellowstoner? Stonehead?),

you’ve probably already made peace with the dramatic dissolution

of the show that occurred over the past few months. This past May,

star Kevin Costner, the original patriarch of the now-sprawling Taylor Sheridan-verse, revealed that he’d be leaving the flagship series. Just two days later, Paramount announced that season 5 would actually be the series’ last. It was unclear at the time exactly what motivated this sudden burst of dramatic decisions. But there was enough information out there to develop theories.

For starters, the shake-up came in the middle of a split season: Paramount and Sheridan decided to split season 5 into two chunks, one airing at the end of 2022 and the other to come this fall. It’s not an unusual move in the TV landscape. Showrunners sometimes make the decision to buy back time to produce the rest of a season, and to insert a cliffhanger in the middle of a season to heighten tension for the series’ inevitable return. Fair enough, but that hadn’t happened before on “Yellowstone,” and didn’t seem to be in keeping with Sheridan’s ultra-industrious, just-get-it-done style.

Then again, between the creation of “Yellowstone” and the premiere of its fifth season, Paramount had greenlit five additional series from Sheridan, all of which he was writing and producing himself. Stressful! Maybe he needed a breather. But maybe, actually quite more likely, it had something to do with a reported falling out that occurred between the cowboy and the kingmaker: Costner and Sheridan. Now due to, of all things, comments Costner made in a recent divorce court hearing, we finally have a clear picture of what went down.

Until now, Kevin Costner had not revealed his reasons for leaving the series that gave him his biggest hit in years. It was known that he’d meant to commence production on a new multi-film project called “Horizon: An American Saga,” which could be a conflict. “Yellowstone” shoots almost exclusively across ranches and reservations in Utah and Montana, too, so that comes as a personal strain to cast and crew. Costner had also vocally disagreed with certain directions Sheridan had begun steering the series in.

Sheridan himself broke the silence to The Hollywood Reporter in June, saying that, “My last conversation with Kevin was that he had this passion project he wanted to direct. He and the network were arguing about when he could be done with Yellowstone. I said, ‘We can certainly work a schedule toward [his preferred exit date],’ which we did.” But the THR profile also reported that Costner got tired of “waiting on scripts,” with one unnamed source stating, “Kevin’s been unfairly portrayed in this thing. How can you schedule something when there are no scripts? [Sheridan’s] doing eight other shows.”

Reporting from inside Costner’s ongoing divorce proceedings from wife Christine Baumgartner, the Daily Mail has now supplied us with Costner’s first comments on his acrimonious separation from Sheridan and “Yellowstone.”

‘I’m disappointed in the production’