Why is Jennifer Coolidge not in The White Lotus season 3? Explained
The White Lotus season 3 premiered on HBO on February 16, 2025. The latest installment takes the show in a new direction, with a different set of cast and settings than the other two.
It features Jason Isaacs and Parker Posey as an American couple with three kids, potrayed by Patrick Schwarzenegger, Sarah Catherine Hook, and Sam Nivola. The cast also includes Carrie Coon, Michelle Monaghan, and Leslie Bibb as a trio, Walton Goggins, and Amie Lou Wood.
However, Jennifer Coolidge’s character of a billionaire named Tanya McQuoid has not returned in The White Lotus season 3, as she died in the final episode of the second installment. The character has earned Coolidge two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actress in 2022 and 2023.
The series creator and writer Mike White explained Tanya’s death in The White Lotus during an interview with Decider, released on December 12, 2022. He mentioned that it was part of her character arc, as Tanya said at one point in the show that death was the only "immersive experience" that was left for her to try.
How did Jennifer Coolidge’s character die in The White Lotus?
Jennifer Coolidge’s character Tanya is known in the show for her poor choice of men. In season 2, Tanya and her assistant Portia, played by Haley Lu Richardson, get involved with a group of men who enjoy the billionaire’s eccentricity. The group includes Tom Hollander playing Quentin, who invites Tanya on a boat trip with them away from the titular resort.
Though she agrees to go on the trip, Tanya quickly loses trust in her new friends and suspects her husband Greg, played by Jon Gries, of hiring them to kill her. In her paranoia, Tanya ends up killing everyone on the boat. However, the trip does not end well for her as she slips and falls off the boat, hitting her head on the way down and meeting her untimely demise.
In December 2022, Mike White told Decider about Tanya’s death:
“I just think her dying at the hands of someone else felt too tragic. It felt like she needed to give her best fight back, and that she, in a way, had some kind of victory over whoever was conspiring to get rid of her, So it just made me laugh to think like, she would like, take out all of these cabal of killers, and that after she successfully does that, then she just dies this derpy death.”
Jennifer Coolidge’s reaction on not returning for The White Lotus season 3
In an interview with Forbes, released on March 23, 2025, Jennifer Coolidge said that she loved playing Tanya in The White Lotus and her role in the show was one of the best jobs she ever had. While talking about her character's end, she explained:
“I’m bummed. I'm bummed just because this season is phenomenal and you never want The White Lotus train to end,” she said of her character’s death, quipping, “I guess when they kill you, it ends.”
A well-known face in Hollywood, Coolidge began her on-screen career in 1993 with a guest role in the sitcom Seinfeld. She has starred in television shows such as Friends’s spin-off Joey, Mean Girls, and The Watcher, while her film credits include mocumentaries by Christopher Guest like Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration, Mascots, as well as American Pie, Legally Blonde and A Cinderella Story.
All three seasons of The White Lotus are streaming on Max.
