The Devyn LaBella lawsuit against Kevin Costner is an active sexual harassment and discrimination case filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on May 27, 2025, in which a stunt double alleges Costner directed an unrehearsed, unscripted simulated rape scene on the set of Horizon: An American Saga, Chapter 2, without an intimacy coordinator present. In October 2025, a judge rejected most of Costner’s motion to dismiss and allowed eight of LaBella’s ten claims to move forward.
What LaBella Alleges Happened on Set
The disputed events took place on May 2, 2023, during production in Utah. LaBella was the lead stunt double for actress Ella Hunt, who played a character named Juliette. According to the complaint, Hunt refused a last-minute scene change involving actor Roger Ivens mounting her character inside a covered wagon and left the set in distress. Stunt coordinator Wade Allen then asked LaBella to “stand in” for Hunt so the cinematographer could frame the shot. LaBella says she was told nothing about sexual content or physical contact.
What followed, the lawsuit alleges, was a prolonged and physically aggressive simulated rape directed by Costner. LaBella claims Ivens pinned her inside the wagon, touched her breast and vaginal areas, pulled her skirt up, and mounted her. The scene was not on the day’s call sheet. It had not been rehearsed or choreographed. The production’s intimacy coordinator was never called to set. LaBella also alleges the footage played on monitors visible to crew and onlookers and that the set was never closed.
The Intimacy Coordinator’s Report
A two-page inquiry report by Horizon 2‘s intimacy coordinator, Celeste Chaney, was attached to an amended complaint filed on June 18, 2025. Chaney was not on set during the May 2 incident. She documented what she described as “abandoned protocols” and an “unscheduled, unplanned violent rape scene” that was “unexpectedly sprung on the actors and stunt professionals.”
Chaney wrote that “action was never called” and “cut was never called,” so the rehearsal had no defined beginning or end. She reported that LaBella was not briefed, did not consent to Costner’s direction, and lacked appropriate modesty garments. Chaney also observed that LaBella had been “put ‘on the spot,’ placed in a vulnerable, compromising situation and then asked if she was ‘okay to continue’ with everyone standing by.”
The amended complaint also included text messages exchanged between LaBella and Chaney the day after the incident, along with production contracts and call sheets that LaBella’s attorneys say support her account that the scene was unscripted and unapproved. In one exchange, a line producer reportedly apologized to LaBella and told her Costner “needs to be brought up to the current times.”
The Claims and the Defendants
LaBella’s complaint originally contained ten causes of action, among them sexual harassment, sex discrimination, retaliation, hostile work environment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and breach of contract. The breach of contract claim rests on alleged violations of SAG-AFTRA rules requiring an intimacy coordinator for scenes involving simulated sex or nudity. SAG-AFTRA first published its Standards and Protocols for the Use of Intimacy Coordinators in 2020, requiring pre-production planning, one-on-one consent conversations, closed sets, modesty garments, and continued consent checks. LaBella’s suit notes the production had an intimacy coordinator under contract and used one for a separate, scripted rape scene filmed the previous day, May 1.
The named defendants include Costner personally and his production entities Horizon Series Inc., Horizon Series 2 LLC, and Territory Pictures Inc. Roger Ivens is identified in the complaint as the actor who performed the physical acts LaBella describes, though his status as a formal defendant is less clearly established in available reporting.
LaBella also alleges retaliation, saying she was not hired for Horizon 3, which began filming in early 2024, after she reported the incident. She is seeking unspecified damages, a formal apology, and a court order requiring the defendants to undergo anti-sexual harassment training.
How Costner Has Responded
Costner has denied the allegations. In a sworn declaration filed on August 18, 2025, he called LaBella’s claims a “bold-faced lie” designed to “damage my reputation” and secure “a massive and unjustified payday.” He said it was “deeply disappointing” that anyone on his production would claim he made a crew member feel uncomfortable, “let alone suffer the ‘nightmare’ she has invented.”
His attorney, Marty Singer of Lavely & Singer, has called the lawsuit a “transparent shakedown” and said it is “completely contradicted by her own actions.” The defense maintains no rape scene or simulated sex occurred. Singer described the activity as a brief blocking exercise to establish camera angles for a scene meant to foretell an offscreen rape, with the actor moving next to LaBella in a wagon and shifting her skirts to her knees without any sexual movement. The defense submitted statements from crew members and pointed to a text message LaBella allegedly sent Wade Allen after filming, praising her time on the production. Singer has also cited what he described as 12 independent witnesses who contradict LaBella’s account.
In late August 2025, Costner’s legal team filed an anti-SLAPP motion arguing that LaBella’s claims stifle his First Amendment right to creative expression in filmmaking.
The October 2025 Ruling
On October 16, 2025, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jon Takasugi denied the bulk of the anti-SLAPP motion. He acknowledged that the Horizon films constitute protected expressive activity under the First Amendment, satisfying the first prong of the anti-SLAPP test, but found LaBella’s claims had enough merit to survive the second prong. The evidence, he concluded, could support her sexual harassment and discrimination claims at this early stage.
Takasugi pointed to the absence of any “discussion, explanation, rehearsal, choreography session or stunt or intimacy coordinator” during the disputed scene, writing that “at the very least, this evidence could suggest that a reasonable person, in the same position, and considering all the circumstances, would find this to be a hostile work environment.”
The judge did dismiss two of the ten claims. A Bane Act claim alleging interference with civil rights through intimidation and coercion was tossed because LaBella had not shown evidence of threats or physical violence. A separate sexual harassment claim under a California civil code provision was struck because the judge determined that statute applies only to harassment occurring outside the workplace, while the alleged incident happened during LaBella’s employment. Eight claims survived, including sexual harassment, sex discrimination, retaliation, failure to prevent harassment, breach of contract, and infliction of emotional distress.
After the ruling, LaBella’s attorney James A. Vagnini said the court “stood with Devyn and recognized the strong merits of her case.” Co-counsel Kate McFarlane responded to the defense’s framing by saying “the creative process cannot be used as a shield for unlawful conduct.”
Where the Case Stands Now
Following the October ruling, Singer announced plans to appeal the decision to let the remaining eight claims proceed and noted that an appeal could delay proceedings for a year or more. A demurrer hearing was scheduled for December 2025. As of reporting through mid-2026, LaBella’s attorneys have been working to move the case into discovery, where they plan to obtain testimony from witnesses who were on set. No trial date has been publicly set, and no settlement has been reported.