Jennifer Coolidge, who last week won her first-ever Emmy for her role in HBO‘s The White Lotus, has revealed that she wound up in the emergency room before filming the series after a spray tan gone wrong.
The American Pie star, who portrays the wealthy and troubled Tanya McQuoid in the Mike White comedy-drama, told Allure that she had a severe reaction to a bad spray tan before filming began.
“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,” Coolidge told the magazine. “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.”
The scary incident led to the production crew changing her makeup routine in the series. “I think we ended up using regular makeup,” she recalled. “The minute we stopped filming, I would shower. I have such a quick reaction to stuff.”
Coolidge added that she has been dealing with allergies for the past few years, but it wasn’t until recently that she realized it was a result of her makeup.
“I was never someone who cared very much about ingredients,” she explained. “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.”
Coolidge made reference to her allergies during her acceptance speech at the Emmy Awards last week. “I took a Lavender bath tonight, right before the show, and it made me swell up inside my dress, and I’m having a hard time speaking,” she told the audience, half-jokingly. “Anyway, this is so thrilling!”
The White Lotus is set to return for a second season on October 30 and will see Coolidge reprise her role as Tanya McQuoid.
