Mike White, creator of The White Lotus, has addressed controversy surrounding season three’s cut non-binary storyline.
Earlier this week, Carrie Coon told Harper’s Bazaar that her breakout character, Laurie Duffy, was originally intended to have a “non-binary, maybe trans child”, but it was edited out of the series following President Trump’s re-election.
The scene saw “Laurie struggling to explain” their child’s they/them pronouns to the other two members of the “white lady trio” – Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan) and Kate (Leslie Bibb) – and “struggling with the language, which was all interesting”.
The moment, which was apparently short, made the revelation that Kate voted for Trump more “provocative and personally offensive” to Laurie.
Coon added: “Considering the way the Trump administration has weaponized the cultural war against transgender people even more since then, when the time came to cut the episode down, Mike felt that the scene was so small and the topic so big that it wasn’t the right way to engage in that conversation.”
In a new interview for The Hollywood Reporter, featuring White and the entire cast, Coon continued to explain that the inclusion of a non-binary character was “before Trump was reelected and before this war on the trans community was escalated”.
She said White “felt that it was actually too political, or too far, or too distracting”.
White then chimed in, sharing that the storyline “felt right in March of last year”. However: “Now, there’s a vibe shift. I don’t think that it was radical, but that’s not the kind of attention I want. The politics of it could overwhelm whatever ideas I’m trying to talk about.
“And a lot of it was about time. Every episode is bulging at 60 minutes.”
White’s decision to remove Laurie’s non-binary child from season three sparked mixed reactions. Some viewers felt relieved, arguing that non-binary issues should be addressed with greater sensitivity rather than in a throwaway line, while others emphasised the importance of trans and non-binary visibility, especially at a time when the community needs it most.
Like the first two seasons of The White Lotus, season three has received widespread critical acclaim and become a pop culture juggernaut, thanks to its controversial storylines, multi-layered characters and standout performances from the cast.
The aforementioned storylines include the fallout of Tanya McQuoid’s (Jennifer Coolidge) death, Timothy Ratliff’s (Jason Isaacs) financial woes and suicidal ideation, the drama of the “white lady trio” and, of course, the “incest brothers” Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) and Lochlan (Sam Nivola).
The season three finale of The White Lotus, running for an hour and a half, airs on April 7. Watch the trailer below.
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