Kevin Costner to Whitney: “I will Always Love You”

A.J. Pike

Hollywood - There have been few greater unfulfilled romances on the silver screen than the Whitney Houston-Kevin Costner connection in The Bodyguard. If you didn’t shed a few tears by the time the movie ends, you probably need to check and see if your heart is still in its rightful place.

Any devoted fan of these two legends could easily feel the reality of their body language, and read between the lines of the script to know there was something else going on between takes. There was a magnetic pull that transcended the dream-like world of Hollywood motion pictures between these two great icons of modern day celebritydom. Granted, co-stars often find their way falling into each other’s arms once the cameras stop rolling. But with Mr. Kostner, one of the all-time great movie hunks, and Whitney “The Greatest Voice of her Generation” as Clive Davis rightfully dubbed her the moment he heard her sing, the electricity between the two seemed to be more real, more genuine. 

Looking back on the relationship, Mr. Costner had nothing but beautiful things to say about Whitney before and after her tragic death. But now, in recent times, comes his willing admission that leaves fans of both Superstars gasping for air. 

“I was lucky to know her. She was the one true love of my life,” stated the two-time Oscar winner as he reminisced about his feelings for Whitney.

“I let her down, I should have been there, and I wasn’t,” the Dancing with Wolves star admitted. “And now, for the rest of my life, I will have to live with the pain. I saved her then,” he referred to his role in The Bodyguard. “I should have saved her now. She was my one true love. I still have ‘I Will Always Love You’ as my ringtone, and I count it as a badge of honor every time I get mocked for it.”

Many fans were shocked that Kevin Costner, taking precedence over all the other important people in Whitney’s life, was the one to deliver the eulogy at her funeral. 

“You weren’t just pretty, you were as beautiful as a woman could be. And people didn’t just like you, Whitney, they loved you,” he spoke to the gathered mourners in his 17-minute eulogy. “I was your pretend bodyguard once, not so long ago, and now you’re gone too soon, leaving us with memories of a little girl who stepped bravely in front of this church, in front of the ones who loved you first, in front of the ones that loved you best and loved you the longest.”

Behind the scenes, Mr. Kostner tried to help Whitney with her addiction struggles and her contentious marriage to Bobby Brown. He admits to having written her letters in the years leading up to her death, but he’s not sure they ever reached her.

“There are some people that really love Whitney, and a couple of times during the last seven, eight years, they asked me, would I write her a letter?” he recalled to a journalist. “She would always be close to me. She would always be somebody I appreciated. So when someone says, will you write a letter to someone who you know is having trouble…I did. I just don’t know if those letters ever reached her.”

Mr. Costner revealed in a recent podcast how he protected her in her first major acting role.

“I started to guide her,” he recalled. “And I wasn’t trying to usurp my Director Mick Jackson, and I had made a promise to her, not to be screwing with his authority. But I also had promised Whitney she would be good in the movie. And that was my one promise to her: She’s always gonna love me in the song.”

Mr. Costner’s enduring love for Whitney, even in death, tugs at the heartstrings, because even her relatives trusted him with her. And even though he couldn’t save her from her demons, the people closest to her always knew he cared for her the most.

“This photo reminds me of how lucky I am to be getting another birthday,” the Bodyguard co-star said during a recent podcast on his 70th birthday, as he shared a throwback photo of himself and the late singer on the set of their 1992 romantic thriller. “We lost such a light when we lost Whitney.”

Whitney Houston died in 2012 in what was ruled ‘accidental death by drowning’ in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. She was found unconscious by her personal assistant and later pronounced dead. Heart disease and cocaine use were noted as the contributing factors.