Heavy/Getty Academy Award winner Kevin Costner
After six months of rampant rumors that actor Kevin Costner, 69, is dating musician and Hallmark alum Jewel, 50, the Oscar winner has broken his silence.
On June 18, 2024, Costner insisted to SiriusXM host Howard Stern that he and Jewel have been strictly friends since December 2023, when they met at a charity event run by Richard Branson in the British Virgin Islands.
Jewel, who starred in Hallmark’s “Fixer Upper Mysteries” franchise, has attended the tennis event yearly, she shared on Instagram, to raise money for her Inspiring Children Foundation. In her November 23 post, she thanked Costner for being there to mentor kids.
TMZ first reported their possible romance on December 8, publishing a photo of the duo at the fundraiser with Costner’s arms wrapped around the four-time Grammy nominee‘s waist. Costner split from his wife of 18 years in May 2023, per People, and their divorce was finalized in February.
The rumors of a romance only grew after Jewel told Elle in April, “He’s a great person. The public fascination is intense for sure.”
But in his interview with Stern, Costner insisted that romance “hasn’t happened” between him and Jewel — though he said there’s no reason it shouldn’t.
Howard Stern Grills Kevin Costner About Relationship With Jewel
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When Stern asked Costner about the rumors regarding him and Jewel, the actor told him, “No, Jewel and I are friends. We’ve never gone out. Ever.”
“She’s special,” he continued, “and I don’t want, I don’t want these rumors to ruin our friendship because that’s what we have. She’s special to me.”
He then added, “She’s beautiful enough to go out with.”
Curious about how their close relationship materialized, Stern pressed, “How does that [expletive] start? Kevin, how does that work?”
“We were down at Branson’s Island,” Costner explained. “She has a foundation, which I didn’t know, and she was part of the foundation. And Richard Branson has been asking me for years to come down to Necker Island, and so I finally did.”
“I’m divorced all of a sudden,” he added. “I’m a single father, and he’s asked me for, you know, 10 years to come down there. I said, ‘I guess I’ll go down.’”
Kevin Costner Says He’s Worried Press Reports Will Ruin His Relationship With Jewel
Costner said he flew down to the island on a private jet with Jewel, Emma Watson and seven other people who “weren’t celebrities.”
“We were the only three celebrities on an island for three days down there, and we fly back,” the two-time Oscar winner told Stern, acknowledging that instead of it being reported that he was on the private jets with nine others, reports came out that it was just the two of them.
“She was somebody I just had some tremendous conversations with along with Emma,” Costner told Stern, reiterating, “I don’t want the press to ruin this for us because I’ve had conversations with her, text wise, and she’s so smart, and she’s been through a lot herself, and so we have a friendship.”
“We don’t have a romance, and we’ve not dated,” Costner said. “She’s beautiful and smart enough for all those things. It just has never happened for us,. She’s everything you might think, but it just hasn’t happened.”
When Stern expressed surprise that they weren’t dating, Costner said that even his teenage kids — sons Cayden, 17, Hayes, 15, and daughter Grace, 14 — heard the rumors and wondered if they were true.