An era has ended. When Yellowstone Season 5 was renewed without a deal, Costner was unlikely to return.

The actor praised the show in the press for months and expressed his desire to return. Now, with the episodes already filmed, Costner has confessed.

After a long year and a half of working on Horizon and doing everything it takes... and thinking about Yellowstone,

Series that I love, that I know you love too. I just realized I won't be able to continue this into Season 5 or into the future," Costner said on his Instagram account.

I liked it and I know you liked it too and I want to tell you that I'm not coming back I love that relationship.

I hope so - but they have a lot of different shows going on. Maybe it will. Maybe it will come back to me

I wanted to do that, but we couldn't do that. I thought I would do seven seasons, but now we're only on five..

Those comments were confirmed by Costner himself, who has spoken for the past three months about his desire to return to Yellowstone in some form and on his own terms.