‘The White Lotus’ Sex Scene That Was Cut From Season 3 Revealed: Major Plot Didn’t Make Final Cut

The White Lotus season 3 viewers missed out on a major plot point with a sex scene that was cut due to time constraints.

Creator, writer and director Mike White revealed that he wrote a scene where Piper Ratliff (Sarah Catherine Hook) loses her virginity to Belinda Lindsey’s son, Zion (Noah Duvernay).

“That part was cut too, which is very disappointing, is that she decides to lose her virginity in the script in the last episode,” Mike, 54, told IndieWire after the show’s finale on Sunday, April 6. “And she actually has sex with Zion. There’s this whole scene where she’s like, ‘It’s true. Saxon is right about this one thing. I need to get this over with.’”

In the season premiere, Patrick Schwarzenegger‘s Saxon Ratliff speculated that his college student sister was still a virgin during a conversation with their brother Lochlan Ratliff (Sam Nivola). Lochlan proceeded to ask Piper about her virginity in episode 2, much to her horror and disgust. She then threw a fit over the family’s dinner that night about her siblings discussing her private life. However, the subject of Piper’s virginity wasn’t brought up again despite it being featured prominently in the first two episodes.

Mike revealed that the sex scene was supposed to happen in the season 3 finale episode after Piper’s overnight stay in the monastery. It left her no longer wanting to pursue a simpler life in Thailand and coming to the realization that she was happier living a life of wealth and privilege.

“After she leaves, she’s just like, ‘I need to have sex,’” Mike said about the scene. Piper and Zion’s characters never ended up meeting during season 3 of The White Lotus. The Emmy winner added how the additional plot point would have made the already 90-minute finale episode too long.

“But in the end, it was one of these things where it was like, it’s already an hour and a half. It would have added 10 minutes to the thing,” Mike explained to the outlet.

The light-hearted moment also would have been a marked change from the heaviness of the finale episode. Especially with Piper’s dad, Jason Isaacs‘ Timothy Ratliff, nearly killing his family with cocktails spiked with poisonous fruit seeds.

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“It had a little bit of a rom-com vibe in the middle of trying to kill the family with the pong pong fruits. It just felt like I was trying to do too much narratively,” Mike added about his ambition to add Piper losing her virginity in the finale.

Several other scenes that actually were filmed didn’t make the final cut for season 3.

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Carrie Coon revealed that her character Laurie Duffy’s daughter was explored a bit more.

“You originally found out that her daughter was actually nonbinary, maybe trans, and going by they/them. You see Laurie struggling to explain it to her friends, struggling to use they/them pronouns, struggling with the language, which was all interesting,” the Gilded Age star, 44, told Harper’s Bazaar in March.

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Michelle Monaghan explained why her character, Jaclyn Lemon, was seen putting on a sexy dance scene at a club with Valentin (Arnas Fedaravičius) and his friends while she stared down several women.

“The three women that Jaclyn is dancing for — or at, however you want to [look at it] — were making fun of them earlier in the day at the bar when they first arrived,” Michelle, 49, told Bustle in March about the scene where Jaclyn, Laurie and Leslie Bibb’s Kate Bohr, “all look like drowned rats from the Songkran Festival. They’re pointing fingers and laughing at them … and Jaclyn was like, ‘Oh, hell no. We’re going downstairs.’” That scene didn’t make the final cut for the episode.