With the three-year anniversary of Whitney Houston’s death a week away and with her daughter Bobbi Kristina Brown in critical condition after an incident this past weekend, Houston’s former costar Kevin Costner spoke out about his late friend and the 1992 hit movie that bonded them, The Bodyguard.
The two-time Oscar winner, 60, appeared on The Meredith Vieira Show on Tuesday, Feb. 3 to promote his new movie Black or White and was asked about casting Houston in the beloved film.
“I didn’t realize in Bodyguard when I wanted Whitney to play that that was such a brave move,” Costner said. “It didn’t seem to me to be a brave move at all. I thought she was the cutest girl I’ve ever seen.”
Costner received a lot of backlash from cynical studio executives at the time for picking an African-American woman to be romantically involved with his character Frank Farmer.
“It just seemed like she was the best person,” he said. “It didn’t feel like I was trying to cross ground. I couldn’t imagine anybody that didn’t want to kiss her.”
Costner famously spoke at Houston’s 2012 funeral, addressing her mother Cissy Houston and daughter Bobbi Kristina Brown, now 21. Feb. 11 marks three years since the famed pop diva passed away at age 48 after being found in the bathtub of her Beverly Hills Hotel.
In an eerily similar incident, Bobbi Kristina was found unconscious and facedown in her own bathtub on Jan. 31. Since then she has been placed in a medically induced coma and is “fighting for her life,” according to the Houston family representative.