The White Lotus Creator Mike White Responds To Composer's Controversial Exit

There's always plenty of drama on Mike White's supposed anthology series "The White Lotus." Lately, however, there's been an almost equal amount of drama behind the scenes as well. Indeed, White and the show's former composer, Chilean-Canadian musician Juan Cristóbal Tapia de Veer, have now traded barbs in different interviews following Tapia de Veer's announcement that he won't return for "The White Lotus" season 4.

For context: If you watch "The White Lotus," you're probably familiar with its trippy, clubby theme songs. They vary a little over the show's first three seasons, but typically use a yodeling motif and build the beat up until the credits end. In an interview with radio host Howard Stern on Tuesday, April 8 (via The Hollywood Reporter), White said that he's pretty shocked over Tapia de Veer's approach to this whole issue. "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 Stern. He continued:

"I 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. We never really even fought. He says we feuded. I don't think I ever had a fight with him — except for maybe some emails. 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 wasn't a team player and that he wanted to do it his way. I was thrown that he would go to The New York Times to s**t on me and the show three days before the finale. It was kind of a b**ch move."

If you ask Mike White (and Howard Stern did ask him!), Juan Cristóbal Tapia de Veer had a bad attitude as soon as the two started working on a theme song for "The White Lotus" season 3, which is set in Thailand. (Season 1 is set in Hawai'i, while season 2 takes place in Sicily, for context.) According to White:

"By the time the third season came around, he'd won Emmys and he had his song go viral, he didn't want to go through the process with me, he didn't want to go to sessions. He would always look at me with this contemptuous smirk on his face like he thought I was a chimp or something [...] He's definitely making a big deal out of a creative difference."

"You're the genius behind this thing," Stern remarked. "Why quit a hit show because you got some notes and some differences? Just work it out."

"He is very talented," White admitted before saying he doesn't need that kind of negative energy on his set going forward. "[But] I've never kissed somebody's ass so hard to just get him to — to lead that horse to water. Have fun with whatever you're doing next." So, wait — what prompted all of this? Well, before the season 3 finale of "The White Lotus," titled "Amor Fati," aired on April 6, Tapia de Veer went on the record to say that he basically hated working with White and wouldn't come back for the fourth season (which is already confirmed by HBO).

This all started when Juan Cristóbal Tapia de Veer sat down with the New York Times on April 2, 2025, before the season 3 finale aired to air his grievances against Mike White. It was then that Tapia de Veer confirmed that, despite having scored "The White Lotus" for three seasons and writing its theme songs, he wouldn't be back for future installments.

"I feel like this was, you know, a rock 'n' roll band story," Tapia de Veer told interviewer Callie Holtermann. "I was like, OK, this is like a rock band I've been in before where the guitar player doesn't understand the singer at all."

Not only that, but apparently, Tapia de Veer didn't directly tell White he didn't want to come back to the show (which, if I'm being honest, is shady as hell). "It's kind of weird right now because I announced to the team a few months ago that I was not coming back, that I was leaving," Tapia de Veer revealed. "I didn't tell Mike for various reasons; I wanted to tell him just at the end for the shock and whatever. Except I told the whole editorial team and music editor and producer and all that, but I didn't think that they were going to tell him. At some point he heard about that."

Tapia de Veer, like White after him, didn't hold back about the creative differences that led to his decision to leave the project, honing in on a few things. First, he alleged that White didn't like the season 1 theme song and tried to cut it; then, when the season 2 theme "Renaissance" went majorly viral, Tapia de Veer wanted to build upon that song for the season 3 title theme, "Enlightenment." Tapia de Veer also claimed that he wanted to give the show the version that had, as he put it, the "ooh-loo-loo-loos," which makes sense if you're even passingly familiar with either of these themes. White, however, had other ideas. "But then Mike cut that — he wasn't happy about that," Tapia de Veer stated.

"I mean, it is what it is," Tapia de Veer added, sounding very much like he does not believe it is what it is. "You know, I was watching the Emmys, and it's like, there's one thing I'm pretty proud of and that is I feel like I never gave up. 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. But what I gave him did this, you know — did those Emmys, people going crazy."

"The White Lotus," which will employ a different composer in the future, is streaming on Max now. You can see how we ranked the show's first three seasons here.