‘White Lotus’ Composer Says He Won’t Return For Fourth Season Following Creative Clashes With Mike White: “We Already Had Our Last Fight”

White Lotus composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer has said season three of the HBO show will be his last in a revealing interview with The New York Times. 

Tapia de Veer, who has won three Emmy Awards for his work on the hit show, has said that prolonged creative clashes with series creator and writer Mike White hit an apex during production of the third season, so he has decided not to return for another. 

The Chilean-Canadian musician told The Times that he disagreed with White’s ideas for the show’s music from the start. White, he said, wanted something more akin to “background music” one might hear “in Ibiza, in some clubby place with a chill, sexy vibe” for season one.

Tapia de Veer said he just “stuck to what I was doing,” and the mantra for his creative process became “How do I pass all this weird music into the show?” 

When the theme tune changed for season three, Tapia de Veer said he received calls from TMZ and other media outlets because people were “furious” about the change. 

Tapia de Veer said in response that he texted the show’s producer to discuss releasing a longer version of the original theme tune, which had become popular with viewers. 

“He thought it was a good idea. But then Mike cut that — he wasn’t happy about that,” Tapia de Veer said. 

“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.”

Tapia de Veer said he’s now made peace with his exit. 

“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,” he said. “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.”

White Lotus season three ends this Sunday.