Attention everyone who was disappointed by The White Lotus season 3 theme song and it's lack of ooh-loo-loo-loos. There is finally an explanation, and it's peak drama.
Turns out composer Cristóbal Tapia de Veer (who's won multiple Emmys for his work on the show) wanted a similar vibe for season 3, and was shut down by creator Mike White. And things became so tense that Cristóbal chose to exit The White Lotus ahead of season 4.
“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. I didn’t tell Mike for various reasons; I wanted to tell him just at the end for the shock and whatever,” Cristóbal told the New York Times. “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.”
Apparently Mike said “a lot of things” when he found out, but Cristóbal explained that “I can’t really talk about that.”
He did, however, enlighten everyone on the general White Lotus theme song drama. According to Cristóbal, Mike originally wanted a club song with “literally no edge to it” that was more like “background music.”
When it came to season 3, Cristóbal confirmed that he made “20 versions of that theme, with and without the ooh-loo-loo-loos.” And when he realized fans were upset about the theme the show ended up using, he tried to release the original:
“I texted the producer and I told him that it would be great to, at some point, give them the longer version with the ooh-loo-loo-loos, because people will explode if they realize that it was going there anyway. He thought it was a good idea. But then Mike cut that — he wasn’t happy about that. I mean, at that point, we already had our last fight forever, I think. So he was just saying no to anything. So I just uploaded that to my YouTube.”
He added, “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.” (For what it's worth, this extended theme song is...perfect. As one person put it in the YouTube comments: “Wow, so you gave us exactly what we wanted, they just didn't use it.”)
Mike, however, has a different version of events. “I don't think he respected me,” The White Lotus creator said during an interview on Howard Stern Show. “He wanted people to know that he's edgy and dark and I'm, I don't know, like I watch reality TV.” Apparently, Mike didn't even realize they were so at odds. He continued, “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.”
Mike admitted that they didn't necessarily work well together, claiming that Cristóbal “didn't want to go through the process with me” and “didn't want to go to sessions.” But in the end, he thinks the composer is “definitely making a big deal out of a creative difference.” As for the composer's New York Times interview? Mike called it “kind of a bitch move”
