The ‘Yellowstone’ Controversy That Knocked Taylor Sheridan off His High Pedestal Before Kevin Costner Feud

Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone landed in a heap of trouble when actor’s heritage was brought into question by other Native American artists.

Kelsey Asbille essayed the role of a character of Native American descent on Wind River (2017).

The actress is said to be of British, Eastern Band Cherokee, and Taiwanese descent.

Taylor Sheridan, who was the creator behind Wind River, and also Yellowstone, was committed to casting Native American actors in Native American roles.

Kelsey Asbille as Monica Dutton in Yellowstone|| Credit: Paramount Network

However, Sonny Skyhawk, a Native American actor-producer, enquired with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians tribal nation, only to come up with absolutely no record of Kelsey Asbille as a member of the tribe, even being descended from someone in said, tribe.

Adam Beach called for a boycott of Yellowstone way back in 2018

Adam Beach in Suicide Squad || Credit: WB

Owing to the controversy surrounding Kelsey Asbille’s heritage, Adam Beach, who portrayed Slipknot in David Ayer’s Suicide Squad, launched a campaign to boycott Yellowstone.

The actor revealed that there were a slew of young Native actresses who were looking for roles, and implied that they deserved the opportunity to play Native roles too.

He said (via BuzzFeed News):

What got me jolted by it was that I have a lot of Native female actors that need a job. I immediately called it out.

Sonny Skyhawk’s investigations revealed that Asbille might not have any Cherokee heritage after all, at least not the kind that is documented by the Nation in any way.

Beach’s call for the boycott was before this investigation and did not receive much traction.

However, once The New York Times reported that Kelsey Asbille insisted on being of Cherokee descent, Skyhawk would go ahead to skim through the records of the Eastern Band Cherokee Nation to confirm the fact, which did not turn up any such document.

Taylor Sheridan has said that he was committed to casting Native American actors in Wind River

Taylor Sheridan || Credit: Paramount

In an interview with The New York Times, Sheridan talked about his commitment to casting native actors in native roles. He specifically instructed his casting director to not even go to a reading of the scripts if the roles that required it did not have a Native American actor behind it. He said:

I wasn’t going to sit here and tell a story about very real issues and cast people to portray characters in that world suffering those burdens and not have some connection.

There was someone far and away that was the best, but I didn’t hire them because they were not Native American. Don’t even read them unless you can vet the authentic nature of their ancestry.

Kelsey Asbille did not address the findings of Sonny Skyhawk’s investigation, and neither have her representatives reached out to address the issue.

Regardless, there is a strong consensus among fans about the vetting process that Taylor Sheridan employs, and how it is going to affect his adaptation of S.C. Gwynne’s Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History.

Yellowstone can be streamed on Paramount+.