Speculation that something just as dramatic happened off-screen as on this season began when eagle-eyed fans noticed that Goggins and Wood—who played lovers Rick and Chelsea—no longer followed each other on Instagram. That was after Goggins posted a lengthy carousel of photos of the two captioned, in part, “Rick + Chelsea. With the heaviest of hearts… To me, ours was a love story.” Previously, he had also posted comments like, “You are the brightest light in every room. A Human’s Human. Miss you,” on Wood’s Instagram.
Cast interviews only invited more speculation about what went down. Goggins and Wood’s co-star Jason Isaacs now-infamously referred to the filming process as “a cross between summer camp and Lord Of The Flies but in a gilded cage” in an interview with Vulture, in which he also suggested that “there’s an off-screen White Lotus as well, with fewer deaths but just as much drama.” He later tried to roll those comments back, telling SiriusXM’s The Happy Hour (via People) that “amateur Sherlock Holmes” didn’t have “the slightest clue what they’re talking about,” but at that point, the damage had already been done. Wood herself only added fuel to the fire when she told The Guardian in March, “I don’t know whether I’d describe [filming The White Lotus] as fun… It was like a social experiment.”
But while Goggins is “not gonna have that conversation” with The Times (or anybody), he will talk about how much he appreciated the “turbocharged experience” of filming in Thailand. “Mike White is a very caring, kind, astute observer of the human condition,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of crazy times in my life in front of and not in front of a camera, but this is certainly something that is profound, not just for me, but I think for everybody that has been a part of it.” While we’ll likely never know exactly what went down behind the scenes of this particular season, there may still be room for some sort of The White Lotus: The White Lotus spinoff somewhere down the line.
