The White Lotus creator Mike White has called out composer Cristóbal Tapia de Veer following the Emmy-winning musician’s surprise decision to leave the hit HBO series — just days before the season three finale.
Speaking on The Howard Stern Show, White described the timing and manner of Tapia de Veer’s departure as “kinda a b**** move,” reacting to comments the composer made in a New York Times interview last week.
In the interview, the 51-year-old revealed he would not be returning for the show’s fourth season, saying: “We already had our last fight forever.”
He cited long-standing creative tensions with White and suggested their relationship had broken down completely.
Discussing the fallout on The Howard Stern show, White, 54, responded with confusion and frustration, saying: “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. 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,” White added.
“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.”
The HBO series creator said the real issue seemed to be Tapia de Veer’s resistance to feedback.
“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,” White said.
“I was thrown that he would go to The New York Times to s*** on me and the show three days before the finale.”
Tapia de Veer composed the iconic scores for the first two seasons of the black comedy — both of which earned him Emmy wins — and had worked on music for season three.
However, after the new theme received a mixed response, he told the outlet he decided to walk away.
“When [the season three theme] came out, I had TMZ calling me, even people from England and from France, because they wanted some kind of statement about the theme. People are furious about the change of the theme, and I thought that was interesting,” he said.
The composer claimed he had created a longer version of the theme, filled with nods to his previous work, that was ultimately rejected.
“Mike [White] cut that — he wasn’t happy about that,” he claimed. The track, titled Enlightenment, was later released on YouTube.
The composer also alleged producers pushed for increasingly experimental music, which led to creative friction.
Looking back at his time on the show, he acknowledged the rocky relationship: “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.”
