Hudson Williams & Francois Arnaud Call Out "Parasocial" Heated Rivalry Fandom
"None of us need your hateful ‘love.’"
Shane Hollander and Scott Hunter are taking a stand. Since the wildly popular hockey romance Heated Rivalry premiered at the end of 2025, its fandom has grown from a quirky little niche group into full-blown messy stan wars. While the sudden success has made instant stars out of leads Hudson Williams, Connor Storrie, and François Arnaud, it has also hit them with intense, unexpected backlash from the very people who claim to love the series. Although they remained quiet about the online furor for a while, Williams and Arnaud called out the toxic fans in a joint statement on March 9.
“Don’t call yourself a fan if you share racist/homophobic/biphobic/misogynist/ageist/ableist/parasocial/bigoted comments of any kind,” the two Instagram posts read. “None of us need your hateful ‘love.’ We all respect and support and love each other and are on the same side. If you can’t accept that gtfoh.”
The statement touches on several worrying comments made by so-called “fans” over the last few months. In particular, Williams has experienced anti-Asian hate from social media accounts dedicated to insulting him, and Arnaud has received biphobic and ageist comments over speculation about his current relationship.
In followup comments on social media, Arnaud and Williams both confirmed that Arnaud wrote the statement with some suggestions from Williams. “It was Francois’ idea and I helped write it!” Williams wrote on Threads. “I don’t scroll comments so I did not see the hate. I was vibing watching figure skating highlights.”
For Arnaud, this statement was a long time coming. “I didn’t post anything before bc we had all decided not to comment on any of it,” Arnaud wrote in an Instagram comment. “I wrote the statement myself today and asked Hudson if he was OK with me posting and he said he loved it and wanted to co-sign with me and make it a joint statement.”
After Williams and Arnaud made their post, several of their Heated Rivalry co-stars shared the statement. Clearly, the whole cast is united on this issue.
