Kevin Costner was sued Tuesday by Ella Hunt\u2019s stunt double for allegedly forcing her to act in an unscripted and violent rape scene in the unreleased second part of his \u201cHorizon\u201d saga.
Devyn LaBella is seeking a jury trial as she accuses 70-year-old Costner \u2014 who starred in, directed and co-wrote \u201cHorizon: An American Saga\u201d \u2014 of sexual discrimination, hostile work environment, sexual harassment, failure to remedy\/prevent discrimination and harassment, retaliation, interference with the exercise of civil rights, intentional infliction of distress and breach of contract, according to the complaint obtained by Variety.
LaBella, 34, claims in her suit that, on May 2, 2023, she \u201cwas the victim of a violent unscripted, unscheduled rape scene,\u201d directed by the \u201cYellowstone\u201d star. LaBella says she suffered \u201cpermanent trauma\u201d and that her career came \u201cto an abrupt halt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFor the first several weeks, Ms. LaBella professionally performed her stunts without incident. However, this experience changed dramatically. Due to its very physical nature, Defendants informed Ms. LaBella she would be doubling for the majority of a scripted, aggressive and intimate rape scene between Ms. Hunt\u2019s character \u2018Juliette\u2019 and \u2018Sig,\u2019 played by Douglas Smith,\u201d reads the complaint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On May 2, a day after the scene in question went off with protocols in place, Costner allegedly \u201casked Ms. LaBella to \u2018stand in\u2019 for Ms. Hunt to \u2018line up [a] shot’\u201d in the rape scene that was added impromptu, in violation of SAG-AFTRA protocol, and featuring the character Birke, played by \u201c6\u20192\u2033, 220lbs.\u201d Roger Ivens.
Though it \u201cwas not within the scope of her role as a stunt double,\u201d LaBella \u201cagreed to help,\u201d though she was allegedly unaware Hunt \u201cwalked off the set, refusing to do the scene.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though LaBella\u2019s intimacy scenes required an intimacy coordinator\u2019s presence \u2014 as an extension of Hunt\u2019s own contract \u2014 the complaint states that, \u201cCrucially, no arrangements were made for Ms. Chaney or any other intimacy coordinator to be present during filming\u201d of the new shots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The complaint says Costner was present throughout the filming of the scene and \u201cvery \u2018hands on\u2019 and was either involved in or fully aware of every single thing going on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWithout proper notice, consent, preparation, or appropriate safeguard measures in place, such as the project\u2019s intimacy coordinator being called in, Defendant Costner directed Mr. Ivens to repeatedly perform a violent simulated rape on Ms. LaBella,\u201d the lawsuit alleges. \u201cThere was no escaping the situation, and all Ms. LaBella could do was wait for the nightmare to end. \u2026 She experienced shock, embarrassment and humiliation while attempting to process the situation.\u201d
After alleging sexual harassment on set, LaBella was not hired to return for the third installment of the film series, which started filming in early 2024, per the complaint. She says that though she was previously regularly hired for the stunt coordinator\u2019s projects, he has not brought her on to anything since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
LaBella says she filed complaints with the California Civil Rights Division in February 2024 and again in November.
The pre- and post-Civil War epic, \u201cHorizon: An American Saga \u2013 Chapter 1,\u201d hit theaters in June. After dismal box office numbers, the second installment \u2014 planned for August 2024 \u2014 was pulled from theatrical slates. The third and fourth chapters have not yet been scheduled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kevin Costner was sued Tuesday by Ella Hunt\u2019s stunt double for allegedly forcing her to act in an unscripted and violent rape scene in the unreleased second part of his \u201cHorizon\u201d saga. Devyn LaBella is seeking a jury trial as she accuses 70-year-old Costner \u2014 who starred in, directed and co-wrote \u201cHorizon: An American Saga\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":13930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.funminews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Kevin_Costner.jpg?fit=665%2C1000&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13931"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13932,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13931\/revisions\/13932"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}