Yellowstone: Here's Why Beth Can't Have Kids

Beth Dutton's future was put into her brother's hands when she was still a teenager.

By Nathan Johnson Posted:
Beth Dutton in Yellowstone

Beth Dutton unfortunately cannot have children in Yellowstone due to a tragic incident involving her brother, Jamie.

The rivalry between Jamie and Beth Dutton has been present since the very first episode of Yellowstone Season 1, and it is clear that Beth has only grown to hate her brother more as the show has gone on.

Although new episodes of Season 5, Part 2 are airing on Paramount Network (find out why new episodes of Yellowstone are not streaming on Paramount+ here), fans found out in a past episode what exactly happened to Beth that caused her to be unable to have children at any point in her life.

What Did Jamie Do To Beth?

Kelly Reilly as Beth Dutton in Yellowstone
Paramount Network

In Yellowstone Season 3, Episode 5, which is titled "Cowboys and Dreamers," a flashback reveals exactly why Beth hates Jamie so much and why she cannot have children now that she is older.

In the flashback, viewers learn that a young Beth got pregnant with Rip Wheeler's child. However, since she was still a teenager, she knew that she could not go through with the pregnancy because of how her father, John, would react not only to her but to Rip as well.

If Beth had the baby, John could have definitely killed Rip, which is something that Beth did not want at all.

So, in order to keep her pregnancy secret, she confided in Jamie. Jamie at least kept Beth's pregnancy a secret from John, which protected her and Rip, but he made another horrible decision that would forever change Beth's life, her relationship with Rip, and the sibling relationship she had with Jamie.

Jamie agreed to take Beth somewhere to have an abortion, but he knew that they could not go to any hospital in the local area since the Duttons were so well-known by generally everyone around. So, he instead took her to a clinic on the Broken Rock Indian Reservation so that the abortion could be performed entirely in secret.

However, what Jamie did not tell Beth is that having an abortion at that clinic also required the patient to be sterilized, which meant that Beth could never even have the chance of becoming pregnant and starting her own family ever again.

Due to her situation, Beth agreed to have the abortion there at the Broken Rock clinic but only found out about her sterilization after the fact. Once she did learn that Jamie knew what would happen to her, Beth's hatred for her brother began and she essentially vowed to never forgive him.

Would Beth Have Kept the Baby if She Knew the Truth?

One of the biggest questions stemming from Beth's abortion is what she would have done if Jamie had told her the truth about having to be sterilized to get the abortion.

Beth knew she could not have her baby at that age for various reasons, but if she had known that she could never have a chance to become pregnant again, she might have gone through with the pregnancy.

It has been made clear multiple times in Yellowstone that Beth wants nothing more than to start her own family with Rip. Thinking about her relationship with Rip sometimes makes her extremely depressed because she knows that they can never expand their family in the traditional way.

It is also worth noting that Beth never had a good relationship with her mother, so she likely wants to have a child of her own to give it what she never had.

The latest episode that was released as of writing (Season 5, Episode 11) gave another clue that Beth was not truly happy with her life when it showed her crying in the hotel bedroom after Rip left to go back to the Four Sixes Ranch in Texas.

Yes, Rip was leaving her and she would not be able to see him for quite some time, but it also seemed as though she was still thinking about how perfect her life could be if she and her husband had a family of their own.

In film and television, anything can happen and miracles are possible, so fans would love nothing more than to see Beth get pregnant sometime before the show ends, but potential spoilers for the end of Yellowstone Season 5 have already been revealed, and they don't mention anything regarding Beth becoming a mother.

However, recent reports have indicated that Yellowstone Season 6 is a possibility, so fans can hold out hope that Beth's wish will one day come true.


Yellowstone is streaming on Peacock, and new episodes air every Sunday at 8 p.m. ET

- In This Article: Yellowstone
Release Date
November 10, 2023
Platform
Actors
Kelly Reilly
Kevin Costner
Luke Grimes
Genres
- About The Author: Nathan Johnson
Nathan is a writer at The Direct where he covers Star Wars, the MCU, and DC news. He joined The Direct in April 2021 and currently writes news and feature articles about all three brands mentioned above, but his main specialty is his knowledge about anything and everything Star Wars.