Kevin Costner refused to shorten eulogy at Whitney Houston's memorial service

Kevin Costner refused to shorten his eulogy at Whitney Houston's memorial service for the sake of advert breaks.

The Yellowstone actor paid tribute to his The Bodyguard co-star and friend at New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey, on 18 February 2012, a week after she died from accidental drowning aged 48.

Reflecting on Houston's death on the Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard podcast, the Field of Dreams actor admitted he turned down an opportunity to honour her at the BET Awards because he would've only been allowed to speak for two minutes.

However, when Houston's cousin Dionne Warwick reached out days later to ask him to give a eulogy at the memorial, Costner found himself saying yes.

"The exact thing I didn't want to do, I just said yes. I could feel the weight on her, now it shifted to me. What am I going to say about this little girl?" he recalled thinking.

The 69-year-old remembered that he was advised to keep his tribute short to help TV broadcasters cut to ad breaks, but he refused.

"Somebody said, 'CNN's here... they wouldn't mind if your remarks were kept shorter because they're going to have commercials.' And I said, 'They can get over that. They can play the commercial while I'm talking, I don't care, but I've come here when I didn't want to speak and I didn't want to do two minutes...'" he shared.

Costner then revealed that he was so unsure about giving his eulogy that he asked TV stars Oprah Winfrey and Diane Sawyer to do so on his behalf.

"I look back and I see Oprah and Diane Sawyer and I swear to God I must have been like 13 when I said, 'Would you do my speech for me?' I didn't feel like I was the right guy to go up there but I did," he recounted.

"I started and about 17 minutes later I was done," he added, noting he said everything he "needed to say" about his late friend.