Kevin Costner has paid tribute to the late Clive Davis at the 2023 GRAMMY Awards.

During Clive Davis’s pre-Grammy gala at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles on Saturday, the Yellowstone star gave a toast to the late record executive.

Davis died aged 48 in February 2012. The music mogul has been credited with “discovering” Whitney Houston.

“I want to say something that I’ve never said to you before,” Costner began, via Variety. “Maybe this isn’t the room for it but I don’t want to miss the moment. And this is from the heart.”

The actor continued, “Neither one of us in the end could protect your beloved Whitney, but your fingerprints on her life are clean, my friend…

“You were a miracle in her life. Thank you for being her bodyguard, Clive.”

Costner also thanked Davis on behalf of “every person in this room you have stood behind and stood for”, insisting, “Everyone in this business has a mom, but not everyone gets a Clive.”

Having starred in the 1992 film The Bodyguard, Costner credited Davis with being the one who “single-handedly drove the song that helped turn” the movie into a hit.

“I Will Always Love You was number one in the world before the movie even came out. And thanks to the musical guidance of David Foster and the voice that came out of that little body that night in the studio, we have a performance of a lifetime,” he commented, referencing the film’s leading track. “We’re all chasing dreams here, rarely crossing paths. But sometimes we do, through fate or destiny.”

– Cover Media