Highlights
- Hudson Williams snapped at autograph seekers who followed him to his Paris residence.
- The actor tried, and failed, to set his own headshots on fire during the clash.
- The meltdown unfolded while Williams was in Paris for Fashion Week events.
Hudson Williams had a message for the men trailing him through Paris this weekend — and it wasn’t a friendly one.
The Heated Rivalry star suffered a very public meltdown on July 11 after a group of alleged autograph dealers followed him and his girlfriend, Katlyn Larson, to his residence during Paris Fashion Week, according to video circulating online.
Williams, 25, was walking down a cobblestone alleyway with Larson and two members of his team when the men pressed him to sign a stack of his own headshots. He refused.
“You’re not fans,” Williams told the group, according to footage obtained by news.com.au.
The actor accused the men of tracking his movements rather than simply approaching him respectfully, later branding the encounter “creepy.” Things escalated fast.
Williams snatched the stack of headshots out of one man’s hands and attempted, unsuccessfully, to set them on fire.
“I’m gonna burn this,” he told the autograph seekers, before ordering them to clear off.
Larson tried to defuse the situation herself, turning back to hand the photos over and quietly asking the men to back away, per E! News.
One of the men could be heard apologizing on camera, though the group kept following the couple regardless. Another shouted at Williams to stop cursing as the confrontation dragged on toward his front door.
Jesus Christ Hudson Williams “fighting” with the paparazzi following them in Paris pic.twitter.com/yODZt2riUW
— jade🎀 (@dreamofbuswell) July 13, 2026The Paris blowup caps a whirlwind stretch for Williams, who has been a fixture on the Fashion Week circuit all week. He attended Balenciaga’s Haute Couture show as a Friend of the House alongside his mother, Sunny Williams, and was also spotted at shows for Fendi, Elie Saab, Robert Wun, Celia Kritharioti, Viktor & Rolf and Zuhair Murad.
The scrutiny comes as Williams and co-star Connor Storrie continue adjusting to a level of fame neither actor anticipated when Heated Rivalry premiered on HBO Max last November. The steamy gay hockey drama, in which Williams plays Shane Hollander opposite Storrie’s Ilya Rozanov, turned both actors into overnight stars and swept Canada’s Screen Awards earlier this year.
Season two, based on Rachel Reid‘s novel The Long Game, is gearing up to begin production in Toronto under showrunner Jacob Tierney.
Williams has spoken before about the strain of sudden stardom. On Evan Ross Katz‘s Shut Up Evan podcast earlier this year, the actor admitted the attention has been difficult to adjust to.
Whether Wednesday’s confrontation changes how he handles fan encounters going forward remains to be seen. For now, the footage of Williams trying to torch his own headshots has already made the rounds several times over.
Reps for Williams did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
