The White Lotus is a worldwide hit TV series, and finally, season four is in production.
Each season of the dark satire has been majorly successful, and while the first two seemed to go off without a hitch, season three was not without its issues.
While many had hoped season four would be scandal-free, just one week into filming, rumours are already flying.
But, no matter how many stains seem to plague the show’s name, viewers around the world continue to demand more.
If you’re nosy like us, keep reading to hear about every drama to occur on and off the set of The White Lotus.
Season four’s suspicious exit
Fans of the show were ecstatic when it was announced that legendary actress Helena Bonham Carter was checking in for season four.
However, that excitement quickly dissipated when it was announced that shortly after filming, she had decided to drop out of the project.
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While we weren’t given any juicy details about the exit, it seemed like Bonham Carter and the show’s creator, Mike White, had different visions for her character.
“It had become apparent that the character which Mike White created for Helena Bonham Carter did not align once on set,” HBO said in a statement.
While White is known to foster a fun environment on set, he’s also known to have a pretty strict creative vision when it comes to his show, so if Bonham Carter and he were clashing over the direction of the character, it makes sense that she would leave.
The role has since been recast, with Oscar-winner Laura Dern stepping into the role.
Dern and White have a long history of working closely together, first on the 2007 film Year of the Dog and later collaborating on TV show Enlightened, so let’s hope things go smoothly for the rest of the season.
However, if the behind-the-scenes antics of season three are anything to go by, things could get a little messy.
TV shoot or “prison camp”?
God bless Jason Isaacs and his big mouth.
There were plenty of rumours during the season three shoot that there was some drama between castmates, but they were the kind of rumours that would usually just blow over.
But that wasn’t the case this time around, and it’s all thanks to Jason Isaacs’ press tour!
“It’s a kind of crucible, a five-star gilded cage. There’s no question that sometimes it is absolutely fabulous, and sometimes it’s Lord of the Flies,” Isaacs told The Guardian of the seven-month shoot in Thailand.
“It was a theatre camp, but to some extent an open prison camp: you couldn’t avoid one other.”
While Isaacs never named names, there were rumours that tensions between him and his on-screen wife, Parker Posey, often found themselves at a boiling point.
“Some people got very close, there were friendships that were made and friendships that were lost,” he told Vulture.
“All the things you would imagine with a group of people unanchored from their home lives on the other side of the world, in the intense pressure cooker of the working environment with eye-melting heat and insects and late nights.
And while the show is known for it’s high-drama and bubbling tension, Isaacs shared that there was just as much of that going on off-camera as on.
“They say in the show, ‘What happens in Thailand stays in Thailand,’ but there’s an off-screen White Lotus as well, with fewer deaths but just as much drama.”
The Aimee Lou Wood and Walton Goggins of it all
Possibly the most well-known of The White Lotus scandals is the alleged drama between season three co-stars Aimee Lou Wood and Walton Goggins.
The pair starred as the central couple of the season, the older and more cynical Rick, and the younger, more care-free Chelsea.
But the rumour was that their love affair extended beyond the screen, despite Goggins being married to filmmaker Nadia Conners.
The drama only intensified when fans online noticed that the pair no longer followed each other on Instagram, despite claims that they used to.
The rumours went on for months, even after the finale had aired; people couldn’t help but talk about what may have gone on behind the scenes between Wood and Goggins.
So, it came as a major shock when the pair did a joint profile with Variety, obviously denying that there was any bad blood and that they had ever been more than friends.
“There is no feud. I adore, I love this woman madly, and she is so important to me. This is Goldie Hawn. This is Meg Ryan. She can do anything, and she will. You watch what the next 20 years of her experience will be,” Goggins told the publication.
“But she’s special. There is no feud. She is love and I know that I am that to her. We care about each other very deeply.”
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The theme song disaster
It’s near impossible to talk about The White Lotus without talking about the success of the show’s theme song.
Composer Cristóbal Tapia de Veer scored himself three Emmys for the show’s score, but he won’t be returning to try to nab a fourth.
Due to creative differences with White, de Veer decided not to return to season four of the hit series – and he hasn’t been shy about sharing why.
In an interview with The New York Times, de Veer seemed to liken White to a “diva” whom everyone else is trying to work around.
When the theme song for season three was changed, the internet was up in arms, and de Veer claims that he suggested they release the longer version, “with the ooh-loo-loo-loos” that everyone loves so much.
“But then Mike cut that – he wasn’t happy about that,” he told the publication.
“I mean, at that point, we already had our last fight forever, I think. So he was just saying no to anything.”
He also added that he was proud of the fact that he “never gave up” whilst working on the show.
“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,” de Veer said.
“But what I gave him did this, you know – did those Emmys, people going crazy.”
Thankfully for our love of gossip, White did not let these comments go without a response, telling TV host Howard Stern that de Veer didn’t “respect” him.
“He wants people to know that he’s edgy and dark and I’m, I don’t know, like I watch reality TV,” White said.
“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*** on me and the show three days before the finale. It was kind of a b**** move.”
Another casting exit
Only a month after Serbian actor Miloš Biković was cast for season three, it was announced that he would no longer be participating in the show.
HBO made the decision after Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs shared a video featuring public comments by Biković seeming to back Russia’s occupation of Crimea, which was a precursor to the invasion of Ukraine.
“Is it all right for you to work with a person who supports genocide & violates international law?” The caption of the video read.
HBO soon after made the announcement that the show had decided to part ways with Biković and that the role would be recast.
Biković is a well-known actor in Russia, having worked there for over a decade. He was granted Russian citizenship in 2021, after being awarded the Medal of Pushkin by Vladimir Putin in 2018.
The actor shared a statement on X (formerly Twitter) explaining that his participation in the show was “not possible due to reasons beyond the realm of art,” adding that he “will not bow to any narrative that seeks to compromise my integrity.”
“I grew up in a war-torn country. At the age of 11, I endured days and nights in shelters while my homeland and my hometown were bombed. And could never wish such devastation on anyone,” he wrote.
“Today, a targeted campaign has been unleashed against me, seemingly as an external manoeuver to influence decisions that can create a disturbing precedent shadowing the essence of artistic freedom.
“The result of such a narrative is the triumph of absurdity and the defeat of art.”
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