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Hudson Williams seems to have reached a breaking point with people following him in public.
The Heated Rivalry star was filmed during a confrontation with alleged autograph sellers in Paris over the weekend. Multiple videos of the incident were shared online, including by Page Six and celebrity news agency BackGrid via Deux Moi.
One of the videos shows Williams exiting a vehicle and being immediately met by men asking for his autograph.
“Guys, you just followed me to my residence,” Wililams said. “This is f–king weird. You guys aren’t fans. You’re being really creepy and you just followed me, OK? You don’t do this.”
The video then shows him taking the photographs he was asked to sign and attempted to set them on fire with a lighter.
A man’s voice can be heard apologizing and Williams responds by saying: “No sorry, leave. I want to watch you hop on your little bike.”
The 25-year-old Canadian actor, his girlfriend and three other companions are then followed by the people recording as they walk toward a building, some of them dragging suitcases.
Williams rips up one of the photos and throws the pieces to the ground. His girlfriend returns a folder containing the rest of the photographs and tells a person recording to “go away.”
At one point, one of the men scolds Williams for using “bad words” when he tells them to “get the f–k out of here.”
CBC News has requested further comment from the star but has not heard back from his representation.
Williams himself has not addressed the issue, but shortly after the video was posted online on Monday, he shared an Instagram post from a professional bodyguard he had been working with in Paris.
Justified response or diva behaviour?
Reaction to the social media videos has been mixed.
“Who does this loser actor think he is?” asked one commenter. Another asked, “why is bro acting like he’s Beyonce?” Others suggested his loss of privacy was simply the price of fame.
But some fans applauded Williams’s decision to defend himself, saying he was “trying to protect his peace.”
“Whenever BIPOC people push back and stand up for themselves and dare to go against the polite model minority ideal, they are labeled as uncontrollable aggressive or violent,” said one X user. “But when white people like Tom Holland or Callum Turner do it, people think it’s protective, brave and hot.”
Multiple other people compared the incident to a similar experience Chappell Roan had in Paris back in March, when she filmed herself surrounded by a large crowd of fans and autograph seekers.
Many suggested there is a double standard for women who are expected to treat paparazzi with kindness and respect, while men are cheered for standing their ground.
