‘Heated Rivalry’ Star Hudson Williams Says Closeted Pro Athletes Have Reached Out

Heated Rivalry star Hudson Williams says a number of current professional athletes across several major sports have reached out to himself and author Rachel Reid to share their stories about being closeted throughout their careers.

The 24-year-old actor shared the revelation in an upcoming interview with Andy Cohen on his Sirius XM program Andy Cohen Live, set to air Thursday.

In the clip shared on Wednesday, Jan. 7, Williams is responding to Cohen asking about the kinds of messages he’s received from closeted viewers about the show, which follows two secretly gay and bisexual professional hockey players as they navigate a romance throughout their careers.

“It’s definitely the people who reach out somewhat anonymously who are like, ‘I’m a professional player and I’m still in the closet,’ ” Williams says, before a shocked Cohen interrupts.

“You’ve heard from closeted players? Really?” Cohen asks in surprise. “Closeted hockey players?”

“Yeah,” Williams answers. “Hockey players, football players, basketball players, yeah. So, then they’re reaching out to Rachel, our author, who will then kind of relay these lovely anonymous emails. And sometimes they’re just reaching out privately through, like, Instagram. And those ones are the ones that really just kind of hit you and go, ‘Oh, so this is a fun show, and it’s celebratory, but also sometimes it’s just hitting people right in the nerve.’ ”

Heated Rivalry wrapped up its first season last month to critical acclaim. Ahead of its Dec. 26 season finale, the Canadian streaming service Crave announced it would begin work on a second season following the show’s success in the United States, where it streamed on HBO Max.

The LGBTQ+ drama is based on Rachel Reid’s Game Changers book series, which is part of the rapidly growing hockey romance genre. The book was adapted and created for TV by Jacob Tierney, and follows Canadian hockey superstar Shane Hollander (Williams) and the cocky Russian phenom Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie), whose fierce on-ice rivalry soon turns to a steamy romance as they begin their careers.

“It was unlikely that this show would become a runaway hit, but I’m glad people are enjoying it so much,” Reid wrote in an essay for Macleans after the show began to grow in popularity. “I hope the success of Heated Rivalry encourages publishers to not only seek out queer romances, but to promote them far and wide.”

The show’s popularity has also sparked debate within the hockey world about whether it could help players feel more comfortable opening up publicly about their sexuality. 

Retired hockey player and LGBTQ+ advocate Brock McGillis, who came out publicly after he retired from semi-professional hockey, said in a recent interview with PinkNews that he worries the show is “more likely to have an adverse effect on a player coming out” because of the sport’s often homophobic culture behind closed doors.

There has still never been an openly gay NHL player. Luke Prokop, who was under contract with the Nashville Predators organization during the 2024-25 season, was perhaps the closest player to breaking the sport’s LGBTQ+ barrier but never got called up from the minor leagues to the NHL. Prokop recently told The New York Times he’s only had “positive” and “accommodating” experiences as a gay player but is still reluctant to speak too openly about his sexuality.

“I want to make sure I’m doing everything in my power to make sure that I get, hopefully, an opportunity to get in the NHL one day,” Prokop told the Times. “With hockey and the LGBTQ community, it’s tricky. You don’t want to do too much to draw attention to it, where some teams might say, ‘Oh, we view that as a distraction. So, we don’t want them on our team.’ There’s been instances where that’s come up.”