Mike White addresses feud with ‘The White Lotus’ composer

The White Lotus finale did more than conclude another chaotic vacation — it also marked the end of a creative partnership.

Following composer Cristóbal Tapia de Veer’s announcement that he will not be returning for season 4 of the resort drama, series creator and writer Mike White is addressing their so-called feud.

“I honestly don’t know what happened, except now I’m reading his interviews because he decides to do some PR campaign about him leaving the show,” White told Howard Stern on his Tuesday radio show. “I just don’t think he respected me. He wants people to know that he’s edgy and dark and I’m — I don’t know, like I watch reality TV.”

White’s comments come after Tapia de Veer told the New York Times that he’s quitting the show ahead of season 4, after clashing with White and the show’s producers over his creative choices. But while addressing those claims on the Howard Stern Show, White denied that the duo had much of a feud to begin with.

“We never really even fought. He says we feuded [but] I don’t think I ever had a fight with him — except for maybe some emails,” White said. “It was basically me giving him notes. I don’t think he liked to go through the process of getting notes from me, or wanting revisions, because he didn’t respect me. I knew he was not a team player and that he wanted to do it his way.”

White added that he was especially “thrown” by Tapia de Veer’s comments because they arrived days before the season finale aired: “It was kind of a bitch move.”

The Times story saw Tapia de Veer reference several alleged disputes with White, dating back to his work on the show’s first season, when they were developing the season 1 theme and episodic music.

Meanwhile, White said their partnership “did work” during the first two seasons because they went “through the process” of sharing ideas. From his perspective, things went downhill after season 3, in the wake of the show’s massive success.

“By the time the third season came around, he’d won Emmys and he had his song go viral, so he just did not want to go through the process with me, he didn’t want to get notes from me, he didn’t want to go to sessions,” White told Stern. “He would always look at me with this contemptuous smirk on his face like he thought I was a chimp or something.”

That said, he continued to deny that it was an explosive feud: “He’s definitely making a big deal out of just a creative difference.”

Tapia de Veer told the Times that despite the struggle, he walked away “pretty proud” of the fact that he “never gave up” fighting for his vision, and ultimately getting many of his ideas through.

“Maybe I was being unprofessional, and for sure Mike feels that I was always unprofessional to him because I didn’t give him what he wanted,” said the composer. “But what I gave him did this, you know — did those Emmys, people going crazy… It was worth all the tension and almost forcing the music into the show… This was a good struggle.”

White too did not deny the success of Tapia de Veer’s work.

“He is very talented. [But] I’ve never kissed somebody’s ass so hard to just get him to — to lead that horse to water,” White concluded, before offering the composer a parting message: “Have fun with whatever you’re doing next.”

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Following the composer’s initial comments, a representative for HBO told Entertainment Weekly via email, “We’ve got nothing to add at this time (but can confirm only that Cristóbal isn’t returning to the show).”

Thus far, The White Lotus has won 15 Emmys across its first two seasons, including three for Tapia de Veer: one for Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music and two for Original Dramatic Score.

The series was renewed for a fourth season in January, before the latest season even began airing. Though the network has yet to reveal casting news or a location for the vacation drama, White hinted at changing things up a bit in the HBO finale debrief, teasing, “I want to get a little bit out of the crashing waves of rocks vernacular but there’s always more room for more murders at the White Lotus hotels.”

Listen to Mike White talk about The White Lotus and his differences with the composer in the clip above.