François Arnaud drama explained as he unfollows, then re-follows, the Heated Rivalry cast
Heated Rivalry’s François Arnaud. (Michael Tran/Getty/Sabrina Lantos/HBO)
Fans were confused, then relieved after Heated Rivalry star François Arnaud unfollowed his cast members and the show’s creator on Instagram, before re-following them again.
On Friday (16 January), the 40-year-old Canadian actor returned to the social media platform with a clear message to the “haters.”
He made a grid post featuring three photos of his co-star Hudson Williams flipping off a camera with both hands. In the fourth picture, Arnaud is throwing the bird, too. In all the images, their middle fingers are concealed by heart emojis.
“Learning from the very best,” Arnaud wrote with a crown emoji, tagging his co-star Hudson Williams.
The bisexual actor’s actions followed the news that he has been subjected to hateful comments, online threats and and harassment from supposed fans of the show, as per Page Six. Yet, Arnaud has repeatedly been a champion of the show and praised his co-stars for their performances.
Williams replied to Arnaud’s post with a middle finger emoji, a heart emoji and the message “love u.”
“François Arnaud has unfollowed everyone involved with Heated Rivalry on Instagram”
Arnaud “purged” his Instagram follows in the wake of the online harassment, dropping from 1000 to just 193 accounts: and seems to have unfollowed his castmates and the show’s creator as part of that mass unfollowing.
His actions were met with alarm by some fans of the show. “François Arnaud has unfollowed everyone involved with Heated Rivalry on Instagram including the whole cast and creator Jacob Tierney Nasty comments and online harassment seem to have caused François to limit his online presence,” one person said on X.com.
However, at the time of writing, Arnaud is now following co-stars Williams, Connor Storrie and Robbie GK again.
Furthermore, he’s also re-followed show creator Jacob Tierney.
Arnaud was so keen to secure a role on Heated Rivalry, that when his old managers refused to read the scripts for the show, he got a new team and secured the role of Scott Hunter.
As Scott, Arnaud is the star of the series’ third episode, which focuses on his romance with smoothie maker, Kip (Robbie GK).
The episode is an emotional rollercoaster. However, the couple get a sweet moment in episode five when Scott chooses to come out publicly by kissing Kip.
The show’s predominant focus is on hockey players Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) and Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) as they navigate their steamy enemies-to-lovers connection.
Speaking to CBS Mornings on Tuesday about what he’d like to see in season two, Arnaud said he’d like to see where Scott and Kip go next.
“I’m hoping to see what reality has in store for them,” Arnaud shared. “A relationship between someone who’s uber famous, has a giant platform and someone who didn’t choose that for themselves, there are still challenges that come with that.”
Arnaud made his cinematic debut in Xavier Dolan’s 2009 I Killed My Mother, otherwise known as an iconic film on Tumblr.
Since, he has gone on to star in The Borgias and Blindspot as well as playing David’s (Dan Levy) ex, Sebastien Raine, in Schitt’s Creek.
Arnaud came out as bisexual in 2020 via Instagram. His coming out post was accompanied with a message about stigma, privilege and bi-erasure.
Heated Rivalry is streaming now.
