White Lotus Composer Says He's Leaving

If you've been enjoying the frenetic, heart-thumping theme songs accompanying the three seasons of The White Lotus, set for its 90-minute season finale on Sunday, you're not alone. The New York Times calls Emmy winner Cristobal Tapia de Veer's music "one of the breakout stars of HBO's vacation thriller"—but the Chilean composer doesn't think showrunner Mike White agrees, and he's leaving the show because of it. Tapia de Veer tells the Times he's not coming back for another season due to creative differences with White, who also directs the show. "I feel like this was, you know, a rock 'n' roll band story," Tapia de Veer notes—except this "is like a rock band I've been in before where the guitar player doesn't understand the singer at all."

Tapia de Veer offers some insight into the commotion behind the scenes, noting it stretches all the way back to the first season, when talks with producers could be "hysterical" when they tried to push him to deliver music that was "more upbeat and less experimental" than his vision. Although he and White were initially in agreement on the "Hawaiian Hitchcock" vibe they were going for, that agreement soon dissipated. Some fans were especially irked when they first heard the theme song for Season Three, called "Enlightenment," for which Tapia de Veer says he was given "no direction."

What especially annoyed fans was the fact that the signature "ooh-loo-loo-loos" that were in the theme songs for the first two seasons weren't included, and Tapia de Veer explains he tried to convince White to use a version that incorporated them (he says he provided White with more than 20 incarnations of the theme song). But White "wasn't happy about that," and so things deteriorated further from there. "At that point, we already had our last fight forever," Tapia de Veer says. "He was just saying no to anything." Instead, the composer has released the song the way he wanted it to be heard on YouTube (listen here). Reps for HBO aren't commenting. (More The White Lotus stories.)