Jennifer Coolidge is sharing details on a health scare while filming for "The White Lotus."
In an interview with Allure, the star who portrays Tanya McQuoid on the HBO series said she was forced to go to an emergency room after suffering an allergic reaction to a spray tan she had applied for her role.
"For 'The White Lotus,' I didn't want to look like a big, white marshmallow on the beach in Hawaii, so I got a spray tan," she said, according to Entertainment Weekly. "I got on the plane, and I started to feel really weird. By the time I got off the flight, I had to go to the emergency room."
After the incident, Coolidge said she used standard makeup instead of spray tan.
"The minute we stopped filming, I would shower. I have such a quick reaction to stuff," she told Entertainment Weekly, adding that before the ordeal, she did not pay much attention to the ingredients in cosmetic products.
"I was never someone who cared very much about ingredients," she said. "Then, I'd say the last five or six years, I started getting allergic. My eyes would always be tearing up, but it never occurred to me that it was my makeup."
Earlier this year, in an interview with Variety, Coolidge admitted she had been typecast after playing Jeanine Stifler ("Stifler's Mom") in "American Pie" and Paulette Bonafonté Parcelle in the "Legally Blonde" movies.
As a result, she felt that there was a lack of desire to cast her in serious roles. It took landing the role of McQuoid in "The White Lotus" to change that, resulting in her first Emmy nomination.
"The saddest thing about life is that you just make decisions about yourself," Coolidge said. "If I'm not getting great roles, I come to the conclusion that people think I'm incapable of that. And then I make the decision that I am incapable of that.
"You actually have to have a [White Lotus director] Mike White that comes in and says, 'I think you can do this.'"
Coolidge praised White as a director and as a friend.
"I have done one thing really right in my life … I've picked great friends," she said. "If Mike was never successful, and we just did 'White Lotus' as a play in a little theater where everyone paid 10 bucks to see it, it would still be one of the greatest things that ever happened to me."
Filming for Season 2 of "The White Lotus" is currently underway, with its premiere set for October.
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.