When Whitney Houston passed away in February 2012, many fans were surprised to see her Bodyguard co-star, Kevin Costner, conduct the eulogy.

They had no idea that the two celebrities still shared such a close bond 20 years after the film came out.

When she died at the age of 48, Costner’s public statement about her death gave hints about their relationship.

“I let her down. I should have been there, and I wasn’t,” he said, via Digital Spy. “And now for the rest of my life, I will have to live with that pain. I saved her then; 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 a badge of honor every time I get mocked for it.”

He went on to conduct a moving 17-minute eulogy a week after her passing, where Costner’s love for Houston was on display.

“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,” the now-70-year-old star told the mourners. “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 that loved you first, in front of the ones that loved you best and loved you the longest.”

Behind the scenes, Costner tried to help her with her addiction struggles and her contentious marriage to Bobby Brown.

He revealed to Anderson Cooper later in 2012 that he wrote letters of encouragement, but he doesn’t know if 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 the journalist. “She would always be close to me; she would always be somebody I appreciated. When someone says, will you write a letter to someone who you know is having trouble…I did,” he added. “I don’t know if those letters were ever read.”

Costner reminisced about his love for Houston in June 2024 on the Armchair Expert podcast and how he protected her in her first major acting role.

“I started to guide her,” Costner revealed. “And I wasn’t trying to usurp my director [Mick Jackson], but I had made a promise to her, not to f—king him.

I had promised Whitney she’d be good in it. That was my promise to her: she’s always gonna love me in the song.”

Costner’s enduring love for Houston, even in death, is sweet to hear because her relatives trusted him with her.

And even though he couldn’t save her from her demons, they always knew he cared for her the most.