Ironic that someone who brought so much attention to the great state of Montana through Yellowstone isn’t welcome there by the locals.

If there’s one thing that Luke Grimes has in common with his Kayce Dutton character, it’s a love for the state of Montana. The Yellowstone star fell in love with the area while the hit Taylor Sheridan series was shooting there, and eventually, some circumstances of life led Grimes to actually make Montana his home.

He had moved to Austin, Texas shortly before the COVID lockdown, and loved the area… until everything closed up. So he and his wife packed up all they had, put it in an Airstream RV and started traveling the country. When he returned to work on the set of Yellowstone, Grimes says they parked their home in Montana and never left.

There’s a certain peace that Montana offers him, which is what he got to talking about in a recent Joe Rogan Experience interview. The podcast host pointed out that Yellowstone motivated a lot of people to pack up and move to Montana, like Grimes and his wife did themselves.

The Yellowstone and Marshals star admitted that’s the truth, and went on to say that those who were “in Montana first” now despise anyone who moves there:

“That’s true. Yeah. And they’re not happy about it. The valley that I live in, we had some people come visit us. Our friends from California drove out, and we went on a hike, and we were in their car. And they had, you know, Cali plates.

We get off the hike, and someone had written ‘go back’ in the dust on their car. Like, people are super weird about it, so I don’t tell anyone exactly where I’m at because they would get really mad at me.”

And that’s not even the worst of it.

Grimes also said that he can’t really go out to bars in Montana because there’s always someone there that wants to pick a fight over him living there. Obviously, the actor and artist has a lot to lose, so he never engages… but it does make him feel as though he’s not wanted in the area:

“I can’t go to bars there anymore because whatever that one idiot is, is at the bar, and he can’t wait to start a fight with me. Just like can’t wait to do it because it’s like a win-win for him, you know? He gets to sue me or something. I don’t know, but it’s a lose-lose for me.”

Yeah… Grimes can’t exactly afford to go “Kayce Dutton” on the Montana locals.

In his opinion, the Montana locals that are sort of gatekeeping the state aren’t anything special themselves. Part of living in America is you get to choose where you want to live. Big Sky Country has a lot to offer up, and draws people to move there by the thousands every year… regardless of if they’ve seen Yellowstone or not.

The Marshals star summed it up like this:

“Someone moved there at some point. Somewhere along the line, someone moved there and all you did was stay. You didn’t do anything that cool.”

You can hear more from Luke Grimes about his not-so-welcoming experience living in Montana below:

The Joe Rogan Experience #2468 – Luke Grimes