‘White Lotus’ composer says he quit show after dispute over theme song​on April 3, 2025 at 10:17 pm

Cristobal Tapia de Veer, the composer who wrote the massive-hit theme song for HBO’s “The White Lotus,” said he won’t be returning for its recently renewed fourth season due to creative differences with show creator Mike White.

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“I announced to the team a few months ago that I was not coming back, that I was leaving,” Tapia de Veer said in an interview published Wednesday in the New York Times, adding that he had not formally notified White of his decision “for various reasons.”

The Chilean Canadian composer’s announcement, which arrives days before the dark vacation drama’s third-season finale on Sunday, would mark a major departure for a show whose hypnotic and tribal-infused score became a viral element of its popularity. HBO and representatives for Tapia de Veer did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and it was not clear how the composer’s checkout might affect the next season’s score.

“The White Lotus” – which each season follows a different set of pampered guests and beleaguered staff at a high-end resort chain, typically culminating in explosive violence – has not garnered the same excitement and virality this year as its previous installments, though it was generally well reviewed. Some critics have complained the plot drags in Season 3, and reports that a side story about a nonbinary character was cut from the script have created controversy.

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So has the opening music, which evolves subtly with each new season. The Season 2 version – with its amplified “ooh-loo-loo-loo” melody, thumping track and bird-screeching finality – trended on TikTok and became a club hit at rave parties and music festivals. It even got an official dance remix by Grammy-winning DJ Tiesto.

Some fans were let down by the latest season’s more mellow approach, featuring a Thai violin and Thai gongs to match the setting at a White Lotus resort in Thailand.

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According to Tapia de Veer, who has won three Emmys for his work on the show, White was never a fan of his musical choices. “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,” Tapia de Veer told the Times. “But what I gave him did this, you know – did those Emmys, people going crazy.”

Tapia de Veer said creative differences began during the first season of production over the composer’s theme song. He said his music was more edgy and experimental than the clubby, chill Ibiza-style music White had selected as a temp score – a placeholder track often used in the editing phase of filmmaking as a guideline for the mood a director is hoping to achieve in a scene.

“I just stuck to what I was doing,” said Tapia de Veer, 51, in the interview. “From there, it became this weird relationship of, how do I pass all this weird music into the show?”

The reworked main title for Season 3 has been criticized by many online as an underwhelming follow-up to Season 2’s iteration. But Tapia de Veer said he wasn’t given direction for the new theme.

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After seeing disappointment from fans online, Tapia de Veer told the Times he asked a producer to include a longer version of the theme song he had made with the ooh-loo-loo-loos restored. “But then Mike cut that – he wasn’t happy about that,” he 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.”

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