Kelly Reilly Hopes 'Yellowstone' Fans Won't Hate Beth After Discovering Why She Hates Jamie

From Good Housekeeping

  • There's obvious tension between Beth (Kelly Reilly) and Jamie Dutton (Wes Bentley), which has led to a number of fan theories about why their characters hate each other.

  • In the season 3 premiere, Beth urges her father to give Jamie a chance as the commissioner — and Yellowstone fans didn't trust her intentions.

  • Kelly Reilly, the actress who plays Beth, tells Good Housekeeping that the truth will be unveiled in season 3.


After playing Beth Dutton for three — soon to be, four — seasons on Yellowstone, Kelly Reilly has fallen in love with her character's "many colors."

While her "unabashed intelligence and fearlessness" is often the focal point (and rightly so), Reilly argues that Beth's complexity — the unwillingness to be vulnerable, the loyalty to her father, and the intense hatred toward her brother — makes her unlike any other character on television. And evidently, Yellowstone fans agree.

Given what we've seen so far in season 3, it seems as though the remaining nine episodes will unveil why Beth is the way she is, even addressing the specifics about her toxic relationship with Jamie.

Photo credit: Paramount Network
Photo credit: Paramount Network

Since the start of the show, there's been a growing tension between the Dutton siblings, but things really came to a head during the second season. ICYMI: Jamie blames Beth for the death of their mother — and Beth accepts it. In a tender scene with Rip last season, Beth even admits that she still feels guilty for not stepping in to help her mother when she needed it most: "I killed my mother by being scared. I don’t do scared anymore." At one point, the two even took their hatred to a physical level after Jamie confessed that he talked to reporter about their father.

Along the way, Yellowstone fans have posed one very important question: Why does does Beth hate Jamie so much?

There are a number of fan theories floating around the Internet: maybe Jamie isn't actually John's son, maybe Jamie forced Beth to leave the ranch way back when, or maybe Jamie got in the way of Rip and Beth having a baby.

At the end of the second season, Wes Bentley, who plays Jamie, revealed that fans will finally get an answer in season 3 — but Reilly confirms that fans should keep an open mind. "I don't think anyone will see this coming — at least not to the detail," she tells Good Housekeeping. "It's so fueled with emotion and feeling. This isn't just a sibling rivalry. This isn't just a chip on the shoulder. This is at the core of a trauma in their lives — something happened that changed this relationship, that could've potentially been a beautiful one."

Although the actress agrees that Beth's guilt plays a role in her ongoing hatred, she makes it clear that there's another layer to the story. "I can't even imagine what that does to a psyche of a young girl to hold that level of guilt, responsibility, and self-loathing. But there's something else," she teases. The betrayal she feels is "so raw," that in Reilly's eyes, every interaction she has with Jamie is "a reminder of that pain."

It's unclear when the big reveal will happen, but Reilly hopes that "it'll be a relief for people." More than anything, she's excited for fans to see Beth in a different light, although she's just unsure if they'll be happy with what they see. "I hope it won't make people hate her," she laughs. "Hopefully, they'll start to understand why she could do that to somebody.

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