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Kelsey Asbille essayed the role of a character of Native American descent onWind River(2017). The actress is said to be of British, Eastern Band Cherokee, and Taiwanese descent. Taylor Sheridan, who was the creator behindWind River, and alsoYellowstone, was committed to casting Native American actors in Native American roles.
![Kelsey Asbille as Monica Dutton in Yellowstone [Credit Paramount Network]](https://i2.wp.com/fwmedia.fandomwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/09134659/Kelsey-Asbille-as-Monica-Dutton-in-Yellowstone-Credit-Paramount-Network-1024x512.jpg)
However, Sonny Skyhawk, a Native American actor-producer, enquired with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians tribal nation, only to come up with absolutely no record of Kelsey Asbille as a member of the tribe, even being descended from someone in said, tribe.
Adam Beach called for a boycott ofYellowstoneway back in 2018
Owing to the controversy surrounding Kelsey Asbille’s heritage,Adam Beach, who portrayed Slipknot in David Ayer’sSuicide Squad, launched a campaign to boycottYellowstone. The actor revealed that there were a slew of young Native actresses who were looking for roles, and implied that they deserved the opportunity to play Native roles too. He said (viaBuzzFeed News):
What got me jolted by it was that I have a lot of Native female actors that need a job. I immediately called it out.
Sonny Skyhawk’s investigations revealed that Asbille might not have any Cherokee heritage after all, at least not the kind that is documented by the Nation in any way. Beach’s call for the boycott was before this investigation and did not receive much traction.
Yellowstone Season 5 Scene That Nursed Fans’ Wounds After Kevin Costner Disaster: Taylor Sheridan Deserves Fans’ Wholehearted Respect For This
However, onceThe New York Timesreported that Kelsey Asbille insisted on being of Cherokee descent, Skyhawk would go ahead to skim through the records of the Eastern Band Cherokee Nation to confirm the fact, which did not turn up any such document.
Taylor Sheridan has said that he was committed to casting Native American actors inWind River
In an interview withThe New York Times, Sheridan talked about his commitment to casting native actors in native roles. He specifically instructed his casting director to not even go to a reading of the scripts if the roles that required it did not have a Native American actor behind it. He said:
I wasn’t going to sit here and tell a story about very real issues and cast people to portray characters in that world suffering those burdens and not have some connection.There was someone far and away that was the best, but I didn’t hire them because they were not Native American. Don’t even read them unless you may vet the authentic nature of their ancestry.
Kelsey Asbille did not address the findings of Sonny Skyhawk’s investigation, and neither have her representatives reached out to address the issue. Regardless, there is a strong consensus among fans about the vetting process thatTaylor Sheridanemploys, and how it is going toaffect his adaptationof S.C. Gwynne’sEmpire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History.
Yellowstonecan be streamed on Paramount+.
Anuraag Chatterjee
Content Writer
Articles Published :1633
Anuraag Chatterjee, Web Content WriterWith a passion for writing fiction and non fiction content, Anuraag is a Media Science graduate with 2 year’s experience with Marketing and Content, with 3 published poetry anthologies. Anuraag holds a Bacherlor’s degree in Arts with a focus on Communication and Media Studies.
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Kelsey AsbilleTaylor Sheridan
