April 9, 2025 • 17 mins
In this episode the spotlight is on the unexpected exit of Cristobal Tapia de Vere, the brilliant mind behind the haunting score from the hit HBO series, The White Lotus. This episode examines the emotional and professional tensions that simmer beneath the surface of creative collaborations. Shifts in tone and style aren't just about art—they're about personal identity and control. When those elements clash, trust and communication often become the collateral damage.
Gain insight into how personal grievances can mutate into public challenges, especially in high-stakes environments. This episode serves a lesson about defaulting to raw emotion in times of conflict while offering the key to maintaining strong, resilient relationships.
Key Takeaways:
- Ego and Emotional Decisions: Personal emotions can heavily influence professional outcomes, especially in creative endeavors.
- Private vs. Public Disputes: Addressing disagreements internally before they become public spats is crucial for maintaining professionalism.
- Identity and Compromise: Balancing artistic integrity with audience expectations can lead to creative clashes and severed partnerships.
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Molly McPherson (00:00):
Did you catch the White Lotus finale this past
weekend?
No spoilers, I promised, but ifyou watched, you may have
noticed something different,different in that season.
It's not in the plot, not inthe characters, but in the sound
the music.
(00:20):
Because just days before thefinale aired music.
Because just days before thefinale aired Cristobal Tapia
DeVere, the three-time Emmywinning composer behind the
show's unforgettable score,announced he's leaving the show.
Hey there, welcome back to thePR Breakdown.
I'm your host, molly McPherson,and this past week it's all
(00:41):
about the white lotus, the themethat I'm talking about.
I can't play it because ofcopyright issues.
You know what I'm talking about?
The ooh-la-la-la-la-la musicbehind it.
Is that even close?
But it is part of popularculture.
He's the guy behind that eerie,unhinged theme music that set
(01:04):
the entire tone of the seriesand now he's out After a messy,
creative fallout with showrunnercreator director Mike White.
There were interviews,metaphors, a leaked track on
YouTube.
But this wasn't just about adisagreement.
It was an ego rupture and amasterclass in how standing your
(01:26):
ground can sometimes meanlighting a match on your way out
.
So in this episode we'rebreaking it all down what
happened behind the scenes, whatit tells us about trust,
creative identity and what therest of us can learn from a very
public, very musical PR splitLate.
(01:48):
Last week I happened to comeacross an article in the New
York Times.
The headline was screamingComposer of the White Lotus
theme song won't return forseason four.
Subhead Cristobal TapiaDeVere's music was one of the
breakout stars of HBO's VacationThriller, but in an exclusive
interview the composer revealedthat he had oohed his last Lulu.
(02:13):
How can you not read with aheadline and a subhead like that
?
I also knew that I had a livecoming up on Substack and I
thought I've just found my plotline for the live.
This was an interview by CallieHolterman.
They were originally supposedto speak about the upcoming
finale and all about the music.
(02:34):
However, tapia Devere took theopportunity to send that
conversation a little sidewaysand he made a big bomb drop of
an announcement.
Now the composer.
He's 51 years old, he was bornin Chile.
He joined a video call from hishome in Quebec to discuss the
(02:56):
score for season three,specifically how he reworked the
main title theme, which didignite somewhat of an online
blowback fury among fans.
When the season premiered inFebruary, there were some people
who felt that the season was alittle slow.
Now.
Personally, I loved it, but theconversation that was supposed
(03:17):
to be turned out to be somethingquite different because the
composer was taking on thecreative behind the show For
this episode of the podcast.
I'm going to pull some of thequotes behind the article and
I'm going to share with you whythis can be a rather destructive
course of action when there isany type of disagreement which,
(03:40):
hey, let's face, it isn't everycrisis about some type of
disagreement.
This is what I say about mostcrises.
They happen from within.
It's usually a culture issuethat seeps its way out and then
collides with an external issue.
So let's look at some of thesequotes, the motivation perhaps
behind them and a lesson that wecan pull out from a
(04:03):
communication point of view.
And a lesson that we can pullout from a communication point
of view and certainly from alife point of view.
Here is one quote from TapiaDevere in the New York Times
interview Quote this was like arock band I've been in before
where the guitar player doesn'tunderstand the singer at all.
That's not creative feedback,that's heartbreak.
(04:24):
It signals that this wasn't abusiness disagreement, it was
emotional.
When creatives stopcollaborating and start clashing
, the work suffers, but so doesthe trust.
Think of one of your favoritebands that split due to a
(04:47):
disagreement.
I'm going to go with theobvious one John Lennon, paul
McCartney.
It may have looked likecreative differences from the
outside, after all.
Look at their music.
Look at the direction JohnLennon was going around the time
of Let it Be Paul, partnered upwith Lind Eastman, john Lennon,
yoko Ono.
It really became like a breakup.
A relationship breakdownHappens a lot with creatives,
(05:09):
but it can also happen in thebusiness place.
When the clash happens, that'swhen the work suffers, that's
when the product suffers, but sodoes the trust.
And when someone starts usingmetaphors like this in a press
interview, it's a tell that itwasn't about the product, it was
about the person.
(05:29):
From a crisis comms perspective, metaphors matter.
Think about when you hearmetaphors in an argument.
I'll let you know I'm ametaphor person.
I'm an allegory person.
I am always throwing those out.
And when do I do it?
When it's personal.
But in this case, he framed thedisagreement as a band breakup,
(05:51):
so he's already told the publicthis wasn't rational, it was
personal.
Here's another quote.
The question was how are youfeeling now about the decision
to move on Quote.
It is what it is.
I was watching the Emmys andit's.
There's one thing I'm prettyproud of and that is I feel like
I never gave up.
(06:11):
Maybe I was beingunprofessional, and for sure
Mike feels that I was alwaysunprofessional to him because I
didn't give him what he wanted.
But what I gave him did this,did those Emmys people going
crazy?
People don't remember, but atfirst some people were
complaining about the music.
Again, this is a case where itis about the emotion, the
(06:36):
personal emotion, and when hedescribes why he chose the New
York Times as his vehicle forgetting back at Mike White.
Listen to this quote and itmight give you a little bit more
insight.
Quote I didn't tell Mike forvarious reasons.
I wanted to tell him just atthe end, for the shock and
(06:57):
whatever.
That's not strategy, that'semotional retribution.
When you save your resignationfor shock value, you're not
being honest.
You're blowing up the bridgeand calling it clarity and from
a PR standpoint it's reckless.
You've signaled to every futurecollaborator when I'm upset, I
(07:17):
go public before I go private.
It may have been satisfying atthe moment, and come on.
It may have been satisfying atthe moment, and come on.
Are we kidding here VentingNothing feels better than a good
vent.
However, all venting episodesare emotionally driven and any
of those emotionally drivenexits that you have in life,
(07:38):
whether it's personal orprofessional, tends to come with
strategic costs, which alsocomes with a reputational
consequence.
Then, during the interview,tapia DeVere gets into the
artistry behind it.
Here's where we can see deeperlevels, deeper meaning, into the
(07:59):
creative clash.
The season three theme, if youwere paying attention took a big
turn Out with the vocals, inwith the Thai gongs and chill,
as he calls it, ibiza-stylebeats.
His extended version gotchopped down and he did not like
(08:20):
the version that was used forthe program Quote.
There's literally no edge to it, it's just nice background
music.
That's not just a critique,that's a values clash.
They took his artistry and theystripped it down.
They didn't value him.
Because to Tapia Devere, weirdis meaningful To White.
(08:46):
Maybe it was too much.
Maybe for HBO they said, no,this is too crazy.
And that's where a lot ofcreative breakdowns begin.
One person defends risk asidentity, while the other just
wants something that's moreaccessible.
Let's go back to the Beatlesreference.
(09:06):
Compare John Lennon's musicwith Yoko Ono.
Aside from Happy Christmas, warIs Over, that's a great song.
It's an iconic song, classicsong.
But think about those earliersongs with John Lennon and Yoko
Ono.
Compare the song Let it Betechnically written by Paul
McCartney and John Lennon, butit was a Paul McCartney
(09:28):
composition and compare it toDig it also Lennon and McCartney
, but primarily written by JohnLennon.
Two very different creativestyles, two very different
values that eventually led tothe breakup, which, for Beatle
Lore they were already broken upby the time Let it Be came out,
but from a comms lens.
This is where it gets tricky.
(09:49):
What happens when your creativevision is your brand and
someone edits it out?
This is where you canunderstand Tapia Devere's point
of view.
He did not want his identitystripped.
When your identity is tangledin your output, every compromise
feels like erasure, every editfeels like a betrayal.
(10:13):
So it's understandable from anartistic point of view why that
is so challenging.
So it's also understandablewhen you're in a comp shop, when
you're in an office and someonetakes your work and they tell
you it's not good.
If you've been writingsomething for days, if you've
been working on copy, if you'vebeen working on social copy, if
you've been writing a response,if you've been writing a
strategic plan and someone says,eh no, it's a different tone.
(10:37):
You might want to stand yourground there so you can
understand it.
It's a values clash.
This is where we can see wherethings are going south.
Now, what happens when there isthat personal, emotional,
catastrophic thinking behind acrisis and you're starting to
light the match andself-sabotage Tapia Devere did
(10:59):
when there was some pushbackfrom the premiere back in
February?
Some people were complainingthat the episodes were a little
slow.
The plot was slow to come.
People also had opinion aboutthe theme music Because it was
stripped down.
It's understandable why hewould feel the need to do this
(11:20):
next move, which was thisposting the entire extended
version to YouTube.
This is what he said in the NewYork Times article is that he
had TMZ calling him.
People were furious, so heuploaded it to his own channel,
a channel where he has almost7,000 subscribers.
It was a great way to get themusic out there.
(11:41):
His YouTube blew up.
He can monetize it.
(12:06):
The fans got the real version.
But let's be clear about thisthat move wasn't about
transparency.
It was about control.
Transparency is when you letpeople in on information that
impacts them.
This was a move about him.
It was about him controllinghis reputation and his music.
It was about using publicsentiment as leverage.
That is something that you aregoing to see in many of these
emotional crises.
Now, was that a powerful move,a petty one?
Was that a powerful move, apetty one?
(12:28):
Probably both, but it came witha cost.
Any chance of keeping thatcreative partnership intact was
gone.
That was a breach.
He went public before he wentprivate, and that's the comms
lesson when you go public beforeyour team can go internal,
you're not opening theconversation, you're ending it.
Next, we can get some insightinto what he was thinking, and
(12:49):
this is the same type of emotionthat you're going to see in a
lot of these crises.
This is an example of what Isee all the time when I'm
working with clients.
So the question from thereporter was what direction were
you given for the season threetheme Enlightenment?
Tapia Devere says there was nodirection.
When I started working on this,I had a collection of Thai
(13:11):
gongs that were unrelated to theshow, so I started
experimenting with that, andthen I started looking for
someone to play the Saw you,which is a Thai violin, which in
the theme happens in thebeginning, and then his mom sent
him an accordion, an Italianaccordion, and then he goes on
to explain it with great detail,how he brought that theme to
(13:34):
life.
There was a lot of thinkingthere.
This type of explanation is thekind that justifies the act, the
act of retaliation.
And here he starts to explainthat justification.
Part of the quote was maybe Iwas being unprofessional, and
this is his interactions withMike White and also what he did
(13:55):
with the theme music.
But what I gave him those Emmys, people going crazy it was
worth all the tension.
Think about a time when you werein conflict with someone or
where you witnessed conflict andsomeone blows it all up.
And then they come back andthey justify I had to do it, I
had to say it, I had to be theperson to do that.
(14:17):
It is that big venting sessionwhere you have to get it all out
and then you have to justify it.
Now, in this case, for him itwas the artist's dilemma.
But when does conviction turninto sabotage and when does a
bold move stop being brave andstart being bitter?
He felt misunderstood, he feltshut out and instead of staying
(14:39):
silent, he let the music speakfor itself.
Sometimes that works.
Sometimes it wrecks the bridgeyou're standing on.
Just because something waspopular, just because something
worked, and, in his case, justbecause something wins awards
doesn't mean it won't loserelationships, and sometimes
(15:00):
both matter.
Think about the cost Before youblow something up, before you
allow someone in your leadershipto blow something up, think
about the cost.
In this case, this wasn't justa composer leaving a show.
It was a live performance ofwhat happens when emotion drives
(15:22):
the exit strategy.
This is the case of aincredibly popular show and one
that had its season finale onApril 6, 2025.
And a few days before thefinale, this New York Times
article drops.
This was strategic.
(15:42):
The composer didn't just leavethe White Lotus.
He made his departure a musicalact of protest.
Tapia DeVere wanted to leavewith a mic drop.
Yes, the music lives on YouTubeand yes, it will live in
seasons one, two and three, butit also lives in the headlines,
(16:03):
and it also lives as a reminderthat when collaboration turns
into combat, the first thing togo is trust.
You can be brilliant, you canbe bold, but when you let ego
narrate the exit, the messagegets distorted and so does your
legacy.
For more PR breakdowns like thisone every week on Substack, I
(16:25):
dive deeper into the storiesbehind the headlines the PR
misfires, the trust collapse andthe brand defining moments that
go big and go bomb.
You'll get weekly episodes,bonus trainings, live Q and A's
and a front row seat to how realstrategy unfolds in real time.
You can follow me at MollyMcPherson and you can subscribe
(16:49):
to my publication on Substack.
That's the PR Breakdown.
You can find that atprbreakdownmedia.
Thanks so much for listening tothis episode.
I hope to see you back herenext week.
Bye for now.
Did you catch the White Lotus finale this past
weekend?
No spoilers, I promised, but ifyou watched, you may have
noticed something different,different in that season.
It's not in the plot, not inthe characters, but in the sound
the music.
(00:20):
Because just days before thefinale aired music.
Because just days before thefinale aired Cristobal Tapia
DeVere, the three-time Emmywinning composer behind the
show's unforgettable score,announced he's leaving the show.
Hey there, welcome back to thePR Breakdown.
I'm your host, molly McPherson,and this past week it's all
(00:41):
about the white lotus, the themethat I'm talking about.
I can't play it because ofcopyright issues.
You know what I'm talking about?
The ooh-la-la-la-la-la musicbehind it.
Is that even close?
But it is part of popularculture.
He's the guy behind that eerie,unhinged theme music that set
(01:04):
the entire tone of the seriesand now he's out After a messy,
creative fallout with showrunnercreator director Mike White.
There were interviews,metaphors, a leaked track on
YouTube.
But this wasn't just about adisagreement.
It was an ego rupture and amasterclass in how standing your
(01:26):
ground can sometimes meanlighting a match on your way out
.
So in this episode we'rebreaking it all down what
happened behind the scenes, whatit tells us about trust,
creative identity and what therest of us can learn from a very
public, very musical PR splitLate.
(01:48):
Last week I happened to comeacross an article in the New
York Times.
The headline was screamingComposer of the White Lotus
theme song won't return forseason four.
Subhead Cristobal TapiaDeVere's music was one of the
breakout stars of HBO's VacationThriller, but in an exclusive
interview the composer revealedthat he had oohed his last Lulu.
(02:13):
How can you not read with aheadline and a subhead like that
?
I also knew that I had a livecoming up on Substack and I
thought I've just found my plotline for the live.
This was an interview by CallieHolterman.
They were originally supposedto speak about the upcoming
finale and all about the music.
(02:34):
However, tapia Devere took theopportunity to send that
conversation a little sidewaysand he made a big bomb drop of
an announcement.
Now the composer.
He's 51 years old, he was bornin Chile.
He joined a video call from hishome in Quebec to discuss the
(02:56):
score for season three,specifically how he reworked the
main title theme, which didignite somewhat of an online
blowback fury among fans.
When the season premiered inFebruary, there were some people
who felt that the season was alittle slow.
Now.
Personally, I loved it, but theconversation that was supposed
(03:17):
to be turned out to be somethingquite different because the
composer was taking on thecreative behind the show For
this episode of the podcast.
I'm going to pull some of thequotes behind the article and
I'm going to share with you whythis can be a rather destructive
course of action when there isany type of disagreement which,
(03:40):
hey, let's face, it isn't everycrisis about some type of
disagreement.
This is what I say about mostcrises.
They happen from within.
It's usually a culture issuethat seeps its way out and then
collides with an external issue.
So let's look at some of thesequotes, the motivation perhaps
behind them and a lesson that wecan pull out from a
(04:03):
communication point of view.
And a lesson that we can pullout from a communication point
of view and certainly from alife point of view.
Here is one quote from TapiaDevere in the New York Times
interview Quote this was like arock band I've been in before
where the guitar player doesn'tunderstand the singer at all.
That's not creative feedback,that's heartbreak.
(04:24):
It signals that this wasn't abusiness disagreement, it was
emotional.
When creatives stopcollaborating and start clashing
, the work suffers, but so doesthe trust.
Think of one of your favoritebands that split due to a
(04:47):
disagreement.
I'm going to go with theobvious one John Lennon, paul
McCartney.
It may have looked likecreative differences from the
outside, after all.
Look at their music.
Look at the direction JohnLennon was going around the time
of Let it Be Paul, partnered upwith Lind Eastman, john Lennon,
yoko Ono.
It really became like a breakup.
A relationship breakdownHappens a lot with creatives,
(05:09):
but it can also happen in thebusiness place.
When the clash happens, that'swhen the work suffers, that's
when the product suffers, but sodoes the trust.
And when someone starts usingmetaphors like this in a press
interview, it's a tell that itwasn't about the product, it was
about the person.
(05:29):
From a crisis comms perspective, metaphors matter.
Think about when you hearmetaphors in an argument.
I'll let you know I'm ametaphor person.
I'm an allegory person.
I am always throwing those out.
And when do I do it?
When it's personal.
But in this case, he framed thedisagreement as a band breakup,
(05:51):
so he's already told the publicthis wasn't rational, it was
personal.
Here's another quote.
The question was how are youfeeling now about the decision
to move on Quote.
It is what it is.
I was watching the Emmys andit's.
There's one thing I'm prettyproud of and that is I feel like
I never gave up.
(06:11):
Maybe I was beingunprofessional, and for sure
Mike feels that I was alwaysunprofessional to him because I
didn't give him what he wanted.
But what I gave him did this,did those Emmys people going
crazy?
People don't remember, but atfirst some people were
complaining about the music.
Again, this is a case where itis about the emotion, the
(06:36):
personal emotion, and when hedescribes why he chose the New
York Times as his vehicle forgetting back at Mike White.
Listen to this quote and itmight give you a little bit more
insight.
Quote I didn't tell Mike forvarious reasons.
I wanted to tell him just atthe end, for the shock and
(06:57):
whatever.
That's not strategy, that'semotional retribution.
When you save your resignationfor shock value, you're not
being honest.
You're blowing up the bridgeand calling it clarity and from
a PR standpoint it's reckless.
You've signaled to every futurecollaborator when I'm upset, I
(07:17):
go public before I go private.
It may have been satisfying atthe moment, and come on.
It may have been satisfying atthe moment, and come on.
Are we kidding here VentingNothing feels better than a good
vent.
However, all venting episodesare emotionally driven and any
of those emotionally drivenexits that you have in life,
(07:38):
whether it's personal orprofessional, tends to come with
strategic costs, which alsocomes with a reputational
consequence.
Then, during the interview,tapia DeVere gets into the
artistry behind it.
Here's where we can see deeperlevels, deeper meaning, into the
(07:59):
creative clash.
The season three theme, if youwere paying attention took a big
turn Out with the vocals, inwith the Thai gongs and chill,
as he calls it, ibiza-stylebeats.
His extended version gotchopped down and he did not like
(08:20):
the version that was used forthe program Quote.
There's literally no edge to it, it's just nice background
music.
That's not just a critique,that's a values clash.
They took his artistry and theystripped it down.
They didn't value him.
Because to Tapia Devere, weirdis meaningful To White.
(08:46):
Maybe it was too much.
Maybe for HBO they said, no,this is too crazy.
And that's where a lot ofcreative breakdowns begin.
One person defends risk asidentity, while the other just
wants something that's moreaccessible.
Let's go back to the Beatlesreference.
(09:06):
Compare John Lennon's musicwith Yoko Ono.
Aside from Happy Christmas, warIs Over, that's a great song.
It's an iconic song, classicsong.
But think about those earliersongs with John Lennon and Yoko
Ono.
Compare the song Let it Betechnically written by Paul
McCartney and John Lennon, butit was a Paul McCartney
(09:28):
composition and compare it toDig it also Lennon and McCartney
, but primarily written by JohnLennon.
Two very different creativestyles, two very different
values that eventually led tothe breakup, which, for Beatle
Lore they were already broken upby the time Let it Be came out,
but from a comms lens.
This is where it gets tricky.
(09:49):
What happens when your creativevision is your brand and
someone edits it out?
This is where you canunderstand Tapia Devere's point
of view.
He did not want his identitystripped.
When your identity is tangledin your output, every compromise
feels like erasure, every editfeels like a betrayal.
(10:13):
So it's understandable from anartistic point of view why that
is so challenging.
So it's also understandablewhen you're in a comp shop, when
you're in an office and someonetakes your work and they tell
you it's not good.
If you've been writingsomething for days, if you've
been working on copy, if you'vebeen working on social copy, if
you've been writing a response,if you've been writing a
strategic plan and someone says,eh no, it's a different tone.
(10:37):
You might want to stand yourground there so you can
understand it.
It's a values clash.
This is where we can see wherethings are going south.
Now, what happens when there isthat personal, emotional,
catastrophic thinking behind acrisis and you're starting to
light the match andself-sabotage Tapia Devere did
(10:59):
when there was some pushbackfrom the premiere back in
February?
Some people were complainingthat the episodes were a little
slow.
The plot was slow to come.
People also had opinion aboutthe theme music Because it was
stripped down.
It's understandable why hewould feel the need to do this
(11:20):
next move, which was thisposting the entire extended
version to YouTube.
This is what he said in the NewYork Times article is that he
had TMZ calling him.
People were furious, so heuploaded it to his own channel,
a channel where he has almost7,000 subscribers.
It was a great way to get themusic out there.
(11:41):
His YouTube blew up.
He can monetize it.
(12:06):
The fans got the real version.
But let's be clear about thisthat move wasn't about
transparency.
It was about control.
Transparency is when you letpeople in on information that
impacts them.
This was a move about him.
It was about him controllinghis reputation and his music.
It was about using publicsentiment as leverage.
That is something that you aregoing to see in many of these
emotional crises.
Now, was that a powerful move,a petty one?
Was that a powerful move, apetty one?
(12:28):
Probably both, but it came witha cost.
Any chance of keeping thatcreative partnership intact was
gone.
That was a breach.
He went public before he wentprivate, and that's the comms
lesson when you go public beforeyour team can go internal,
you're not opening theconversation, you're ending it.
Next, we can get some insightinto what he was thinking, and
(12:49):
this is the same type of emotionthat you're going to see in a
lot of these crises.
This is an example of what Isee all the time when I'm
working with clients.
So the question from thereporter was what direction were
you given for the season threetheme Enlightenment?
Tapia Devere says there was nodirection.
When I started working on this,I had a collection of Thai
(13:11):
gongs that were unrelated to theshow, so I started
experimenting with that, andthen I started looking for
someone to play the Saw you,which is a Thai violin, which in
the theme happens in thebeginning, and then his mom sent
him an accordion, an Italianaccordion, and then he goes on
to explain it with great detail,how he brought that theme to
(13:34):
life.
There was a lot of thinkingthere.
This type of explanation is thekind that justifies the act, the
act of retaliation.
And here he starts to explainthat justification.
Part of the quote was maybe Iwas being unprofessional, and
this is his interactions withMike White and also what he did
(13:55):
with the theme music.
But what I gave him those Emmys, people going crazy it was
worth all the tension.
Think about a time when you werein conflict with someone or
where you witnessed conflict andsomeone blows it all up.
And then they come back andthey justify I had to do it, I
had to say it, I had to be theperson to do that.
(14:17):
It is that big venting sessionwhere you have to get it all out
and then you have to justify it.
Now, in this case, for him itwas the artist's dilemma.
But when does conviction turninto sabotage and when does a
bold move stop being brave andstart being bitter?
He felt misunderstood, he feltshut out and instead of staying
(14:39):
silent, he let the music speakfor itself.
Sometimes that works.
Sometimes it wrecks the bridgeyou're standing on.
Just because something waspopular, just because something
worked, and, in his case, justbecause something wins awards
doesn't mean it won't loserelationships, and sometimes
(15:00):
both matter.
Think about the cost Before youblow something up, before you
allow someone in your leadershipto blow something up, think
about the cost.
In this case, this wasn't justa composer leaving a show.
It was a live performance ofwhat happens when emotion drives
(15:22):
the exit strategy.
This is the case of aincredibly popular show and one
that had its season finale onApril 6, 2025.
And a few days before thefinale, this New York Times
article drops.
This was strategic.
(15:42):
The composer didn't just leavethe White Lotus.
He made his departure a musicalact of protest.
Tapia DeVere wanted to leavewith a mic drop.
Yes, the music lives on YouTubeand yes, it will live in
seasons one, two and three, butit also lives in the headlines,
(16:03):
and it also lives as a reminderthat when collaboration turns
into combat, the first thing togo is trust.
You can be brilliant, you canbe bold, but when you let ego
narrate the exit, the messagegets distorted and so does your
legacy.
For more PR breakdowns like thisone every week on Substack, I
(16:25):
dive deeper into the storiesbehind the headlines the PR
misfires, the trust collapse andthe brand defining moments that
go big and go bomb.
You'll get weekly episodes,bonus trainings, live Q and A's
and a front row seat to how realstrategy unfolds in real time.
You can follow me at MollyMcPherson and you can subscribe
(16:49):
to my publication on Substack.
That's the PR Breakdown.
You can find that atprbreakdownmedia.
Thanks so much for listening tothis episode.
I hope to see you back herenext week.
Bye for now.
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