Yellowstone's Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser Break Silence on Monica's Death
Yellowstone‘s Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauserfinally broke their silence on Monica's shocking death.
Reilly, 48, and Hauser, 51, were asked about whether the events on Dutton Ranch happened before or after the timeline currently taking place on Luke Grimes‘ spinoff show Marshals. Reilly clarified that the fire at the beginning of Dutton Ranchlikely happened after Kayce (Grimes) mourned his wife's death.
"I think that happened before our show started in a story world," Reilly told TV Insider on Friday, July 3. "I imagine Beth and Rip had gone to Monica's [funeral], that there has been some connection and our story started after that."
The duo noted that due to timing, Monica's (Kelsey Asbille) death couldn't be addressed in season 1 of Dutton Ranch, with Reilly added, "But I would absolutely imagine that there'll be some checking in on her brother and we just didn't see it this year."
Reilly referred to it as a "missed opportunity."
"But we're all both trying to start up these big shows. And I think we can see where there are gaps and we see where things needed to be fixed. And that's what you get the opportunity to do in a season 2," she continued. "You get to go back and go, ‘OK, we can do this one differently. We can make this better. We can take care of that.' And I think we already have our list of things in all our individual minds: Christina Voros, Taylor Sheridan, our producers, our new showrunner [Benjamin Cavell]. So I'm looking forward to getting into that, and so we can make the best show we can."
Hauser, meanwhile, showed his support for a potential crossover with Marshals.
"It'd be fun to see actually Kayce and Rip get along," Hauser said. "Have a scene where they're actually happy together. I would absolutely love to see that and see it written and actually have some fun with him in some capacity."
Yellowstone, which aired from 2018 to 2024, introduced Us to Kayce and his wife, Monica, who remained at the center of the show until the 2024 finale.
After teaching at a local school on the Broken Rock Indian Reservation, Monica went on to become a professor at Montana State University while navigating life with Kayce, who moved them back to the Yellowstone Ranch following his past tension with dad John (Kevin Costner).
Following John's death, Kayce, a former U.S. Navy SEAL, became the new owner and operator of the Yellowstone Ranch. Kayce and Monica ended the show alive - and were still together - before Marshals began.
When the series premiered in March, however, fans learned Monica had died after battling cancer.
"Kayce had such a perfect ending in Yellowstone," showrunner Spencer Hudnut told TVLine at the time. "His dreams had finally come true. As we were trying to figure out how to tell the next chapter in Kayce's story, it felt like he really needed to be shaken out of that. Unfortunately, tragedy tends to find Kayce, so something bad was going to happen for him one way or the other. It just sort of played out that it was going to be Monica."
Hudnut said Monica's death will continue to drive Kayce, adding, "To me, Monica is really guiding Kayce through this first episode, trying to help him find his new path. And if you actually break it down, Tate is at that rally to honor his mother, and Kayce goes there to protect Tate. So if not for Monica, Kayce never would have been in that position and may not have found this path."
He concluded: "We really wanted to be respectful of the way that we said goodbye to her. I also didn't want to step on the ending of Yellowstone, because what they had was a beautiful ending. Unfortunately, real life intervened."
Asbille, 34, has not yet broken her silence on Monica's onscreen death. She did grant access for her likeness to be used on the show, which allowed Marshals to include photos of the fictional character on screen.
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This story was originally published July 3, 2026 at 10:15 AM.