Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood: The debunked ‘White Lotus' feud explained

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a day ago

"There is no feud." The words—a quote from The White Lotus star Walton Goggins—that top Variety's joint interview with him and his costar Aimee Lou Wood are very direct. They seek to bring to a close a sort of Schrödinger's drama around the third season of Mike White's resort-based anthology.
Internet sleuths were convinced that the on-screen couple was feuding, despite no direct evidence existing and both sides denying the rumors. But if they hadn't had a falling out, then why did they unfollow each other on Instagram? Doesn't that have to mean something?
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Just as Emmys season is kicking into full-swing, a joint interview puts the whole matter to bed. So what was this all about? What—if anything—actually happened? Why did anyone care?
That last one might be too big of a question to answer in this article, but here's everything else you need to know about Goggins, Wood, and the story surrounding them.
The backstory Viewers of the Thailand-based third season of The White Lotus watched as the star-crossed, age-gapped tragic lovers Rick and Chelsea marched toward doom together in a beautiful resort. Everything appeared to be just as loving off-camera, where they had the kind of relationship that involved Goggins posting things like "You are the brightest light in every room. A Human's Human. Miss you," on Wood's Instagram.
But in the months that followed, something changed. Specifically, both of their Following lists. Internet sleuths realized that Goggins and Wood had mutually unfollowed each other on the platform and left it to everyone who cared to connect the dots.
And, of course, no one was chill about it.
The foundation of the rumor seems to have come from context-free quotes their costar Jason Isaacs gave to The Guardian during a preview piece for the season. "There were alliances that formed and broke, romances that formed and broke, friendships that formed and broke," he said. "It's a long period of time for people to be away from their family with an open bar and all the wildness being in Thailand allows."
Talking around it The first big refutation of the rumor came from Goggins. But it wasn't an outright denial and mainly added fuel to the fire.
While speaking with The Times, the actor seemed to get frustrated by questions about the potential feud, but that could have been due to the interview being pegged to an entirely different project. "I'm not gonna have that conversation," he said, before later adding, "There is no conversation to be had about that."
A few days after that story was published, both Goggins and Wood attended the Met Gala, but were not photographed together. Fielding a question about whether she would stop by her costar's upcoming Saturday Night Live hosting gig, Wood—who had weeks before been mocked on the show—responded "I'm not doing that," then added "Yeah, why not? Why not? Yeah, it would be fun."
The interview The cover story dates the interview to the first weekend in May, which winds back the clock a bit for those timestamping the drama. The meet-up was their first in months and was, from the trade's account, quite emotional. "Visibly emotional seeing each other, the two embraced for 30 seconds as the Variety team suddenly felt we were intruding on a private moment."
The interview with The Times had come out just days before the Variety interview and was fresh in Goggins' mind. He spoke directly to the rumors. "There is no feud," he said, at one point getting choked up. "I adore, I love this woman madly, and she is so important to me. This is Goldie Hawn. This is Meg Ryan. She can do anything, and she will. You watch what the next 20 years of her experience will be. I'll be on an island, I think Greece. But she's special. There is no feud. She is love and I know that I am that to her. We care about each other very deeply."
Wood took a broader view of the controversy, saying that it was indicative of where we are culturally. "Why is everyone obsessing over Instagram?" she said. "That is irrelevant. We don't give a sh-te about Instagram. Why not have conversations about the story and Rick and Chelsea and enjoy it?... Eventually I just started to sit back and watch these people making something out of absolutely nothing."
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