![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ac8c7a5bc67fea3a988e4862db7b8e4159-francois-splitalt.rsquare.w330.jpg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\n Hudson Williams and Fran\u00e7ois Arnaud.
\n Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Getty Images (Emma McIntyre, Swan Gallet\/WWD)\n <\/p>\n
Heated Rivalry stars Hudson Williams and Fran\u00e7ois Arnaud condemned people who spread hate online in a matching Notes app screenshot shared to their Instagram Stories on March 9. \u201cDon\u2019t call yourself a fan if you share racist\/homophobic\/biphobic\/
misogynist\/ageist\/ableist\/parasocial\/
bigoted comments of any kind,\u201d their statement read. \u201cNone of us need your hateful \u2018love.\u2019\u201d The message \u2014 which was shared \u200b\u200bby several of their co-stars, including Robbie G.K., Ksenia Daniela Kharlamova, Sophie N\u00e9lisse, Nadine Bhabha, Christina Chang, and Callan Potter \u2014\u00a0continued, \u201cWe all respect and support and love each other and are on the same side. if you can\u2019t accept that gtfoh.\u201d Show creator Jacob Tierney and author Rachel Reid, whose Game Changers books inspired the hit hockey-romance series, both also shared the statement.<\/p>\n
Kharlamova, who plays Svetlana, expressed<\/a> a similar sentiment in an addendum on her Instagram Story. \u201cPls don\u2019t make a show that\u2019s about love be hateful online,\u201d she wrote in part. \u201cSo much love was poured into this project and we all genuinely have so much respect for everyone involved in making this. We\u2019re not characters and neither are our real friends, partners, family and making up false narratives about us isn\u2019t \u2018love.\u2019\u201d Harrison Browne, the trans former pro hockey player who makes a cameo as a player on the show, shared<\/a> Williams and Arnaud\u2019s statement and took the opportunity to also call attention to transphobic comments by sharing screenshots of hateful tweets that have been made about him due to his casting.<\/p>\n Heated Rivalry, the HBO Max\u2013acquired Crave series that stars Williams and Connor Storrie as closeted hockey players in love, has exploded in popularity since its November premiere. But that rise has been accompanied by intense scrutiny of the cast\u2019s personal lives, as well as online hatred from people who claim to be fans but have directed racist comments at Williams (who is half Korean), attacked Arnaud\u2019s age and sexuality over rumors that he\u2019s dating Storrie, and\/or pitted the cast against each other.<\/p>\n Even Williams and Arnaud\u2019s joint statement didn\u2019t immediately satisfy everyone, with some people criticizing co-stars for not speaking up sooner. \u201cI didn\u2019t post anything before bc we had all decided not to comment on any of it,\u201d Arnaud clarified<\/a> in an Instagram comment. \u201cI 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. Gtfoh.\u201d Williams echoed this explanation in a Threads reply<\/a> to someone who suggested that he should not have had to co-sign the statement. \u201cIt was Francois\u2019 idea and I helped write it!\u201d Williams wrote. \u201cI don\u2019t scroll comments so I did not see the hate. I was vibing watching figure skating highlights.\u201d Maybe he was enjoying a performance by a fellow Wasian icon<\/a>?<\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hudson Williams and Fran\u00e7ois Arnaud. Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Getty Images (Emma McIntyre, Swan Gallet\/WWD) Heated Rivalry stars Hudson…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[268],"tags":[434,18,117,173553,106286,137393,19,17,122990,146627,5,174101,115023],"class_list":["post-378432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-francois-arnaud","tag-heated-rivalry","tag-hudson-williams","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jacob-tierney","tag-ksenia-daniela-kharlamova","tag-news","tag-rachel-reid","tag-statements"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116207333415030790","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}