Walton Goggins, Aimee Lou Wood, and the complex illogic of the Instagram unfollow

One of the great mysteries of our time has finally been solved. No—not the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, what happened to the lost colony of Roanoke, or the existence of the Loch Ness Monster: it’s the reason as to why The White Lotus co-stars Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood stopped following each other on Instagram.

In case you haven’t been paying attention, a quick recap. When The White Lotus finale aired back in April, eagle-eyed fans of the show were quick to spot that on-screen couple Goggins and Wood were no longer following each other on social media. What made this all the juicier was that Goggins had previously shared several gushy posts about Wood, and that both of them were still following other cast members. Throw into the mix co-star Jason Isaacs’ chaotically cryptic quotes about the set being “like Lord of the Flies” and people started to speculate of a feud between Goggins and Wood—something the former did nothing to quell after sharing the now-infamous SNL skit that mocked Wood’s teeth.

Well now, Goggins and Wood have finally addressed The Unfollowing in a joint interview with Variety. And the answer is fairly boring, to be honest. It’s just that Goggins likes to disconnect from a project after filming it, and The White Lotus in particular had been an emotional one for him, as it was filmed in the same location that he visited following the suicide of his first wife in 2004.

“I knew what [Wood and I] had gone through, and I knew how close that we had gotten, and I needed to begin to process saying goodbye to [their characters] Rick and Chelsea. And I knew that that was going to take a while for me, so I let her know, ‘This is what I’ve gotta do.’ And she was extremely supportive about that.”

Wood, for her own part, seems to have been amused at the fuss surrounding the whole thing, saying: “Why is everyone obsessing over Instagram? That is irrelevant. We don’t give a shite about Instagram… Eventually, I just started to sit back and watch these people making something out of absolutely nothing.”

Yet in today’s social-media-obsessed world—where people are quite literally employed to check who is following who on Instagram, and then to write stories about it—it seems to have been a PR misstep for Goggins and Wood to have not just come out and said that was the reason all along. If indeed it was.

After all, they are far from the first celebrities to be embroiled in an Unfollowing controversy. Justin and Hailey Bieber routinely unfollow each other. Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom did the same in January. Mother and daughter Tish and Miley Cyrus have also done it amidst rumours of a familial fallout. On each of these occasions, the red-faced A-lister has purported to have done it by mistake. Blame fat thumbs.

Yet in my decade of using the app, I’ve never unfollowed someone unintentionally. Indeed, every single time, it’s been intentional. There’s the ex-colleague I unfollowed because she had been scheming behind my back. The old housemate I fell out with over an end-of-tenancy dispute. And almost every single guy I’ve dated. Each and every time I’ve unfollowed somebody, it’s usually been in the heat of the moment—and I’ve undoubtedly wanted that person to notice. Which is why I don’t 100 per cent buy the go-to Hollywood line.

If you wanted evidence that celebrities are, in fact, just like us—then may I present exhibit A. One of the moments that Justin Baldoni himself cites as the catalyst for his campaign against It Ends With Us co-star Blake Lively, was when he realised her husband, Ryan Reynolds, was no longer following him on Instagram. According to texts to his publicist included in the court filing, he said: “We should have a plan for if [Blake Lively] does the same when [the] movie comes out.”

Baldoni knew that Reynolds unfollowing him would look bad—and that’s probably why Reynolds did it. In the same general universe, we’ve also recently had Taylor Swift’s boyfriend Travis Kelce unfollowing Reynolds, with rumours of a schism between former besties Swift and Lively, again pegged to the It [Never] Ends With Us drama. The devil works hard… but the Unfollow Button works harder.

Another possible reason for celebrity unfollows? To drum up interest in a project. A few decades ago, you’d leak stories of a feud or on-screen romance to the press and watch the ticket sales soar. In 2025, it’s easier and more effective to do so on Instagram—especially when there are internet sleuths aplenty dedicated to deciphering this sort of online behaviour.

So let’s all spare a thought for the mute button: it’s not getting anywhere near enough celebrity love.

Lead Image: HBO

This article originally appeared on HarpersBazaar.com

 

Also read: Wimbledon’s best match is fashion

Also read: How avoiding difficult conversations is harming your career