{"id":94648,"date":"2026-01-18T21:28:04","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T05:28:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=94648"},"modified":"2026-01-18T21:28:04","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T05:28:04","slug":"francois-new-york-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2026\/01\/18\/francois-new-york-visit\/","title":{"rendered":"Francois’ New York Visit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fran\u00e7ois Arnaud <\/strong>has had a heady few weeks.  While promoting Heated Rivalry<\/em><\/strong>, he was surprised to meet a superfan backstage at CBS Mornings<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 Oprah Winfrey<\/strong>!  \u201cAre you enjoying all the heat?\u201d asked O.  \u201cI\u2019m riding the wave.\u201d  Oprah smiled and said, \u201cThat\u2019s exactly what I was going to say \u2013 ride the wave and stay completely present in all of it.  Just ride it.  It\u2019s fantastic.  I\u2019m so happy for you.  And the fact that it\u2019s coming at a time in your life when you\u2019re really able to accept it.\u201d  Fran\u00e7ois agreed, saying, \u201cTotally.  I think if it happened to me at 25, I\u2019d be dead now.  But now I can handle it.  I know who I am.\u201d  \u201cYou know who you are.  \u2018Cause if you don\u2019t know who you are, you fall off.\u201d  Arnaud assured her, \u201cI won\u2019t fall off.\u201d  PHEW!<\/p>\n

On CBS Mornings<\/em>, Fran\u00e7ois said that prior to going into production with Crave <\/em>in Canada, Heated Rivalry<\/em> had a deal with a \u201cbig streamer\u201d in the US.  But they had a list of notes for Jacob Tierney<\/strong>, the series creator \u2013 including \u201cno kissing until episode five\u201d.  Jacob\u2019s response?  \u201cWell, that\u2019s not what we\u2019re doing.\u201d  After they showed a clip of Scott and Kip in a locked embrace, Arnaud made the following observation: \u201cI think Kip needs to stop working out, \u2018cause he\u2019s a smoothie boy.  He shouldn\u2019t have that body and shouldn\u2019t look better than the hockey players.\u201d  You can see the entire interview on BillyMasters.com<\/u><\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

While in NYC, Arnaud was spotted on several occasions with co-star Connor Storrie<\/strong>, adding credence to rumors that the two are dating.  They were even photographed together at JFK where they caught a flight to LAX.<\/p>\n

\"colorbar1\"<\/p>\n

The Heated Rivalry<\/em> effect keeps gaining momentum.  Everyone is talking about last week\u2019s Saturday Night Live<\/em> parody (yes, we\u2019ll post it).  Even the NHL<\/em> has weighed in on the series.  Commissioner Gary Bettman <\/strong>says that he binged it in one night.  \u201cIt\u2019s a wonderful story.  The content \u2013 particularly for young people \u2013 may be a little spicy, so you have to balance that out.\u201d  I suspect young people are the ones least taken aback by the \u201cspice\u201d.  While no NHL player has yet come out, it\u2019s in the air.  In 2021, Canadian Luke Prokop <\/strong>was under contract with an NHL team, although he ended up with an AHL team (I say as if I know the difference).  Perhaps that was all for the best \u2013 the NHL team was the Nashville Predators<\/em><\/strong>!  And while much was made of Jesse Kortuem <\/strong>coming out due to the series, he too never played with an NHL team.  Just a matter of time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fran\u00e7ois Arnaud has had a heady few weeks.  While promoting Heated Rivalry, he was surprised to meet a superfan backstage at CBS Mornings \u2013 Oprah Winfrey!  \u201cAre you enjoying all the heat?\u201d asked O.  \u201cI\u2019m riding the wave.\u201d  Oprah smiled and said, \u201cThat\u2019s exactly what I was going to say \u2013 ride the wave and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94648"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94649,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94648\/revisions\/94649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}