’Twas the night of the 83rd Golden Globes, and every suburban mother, twentysomething, and CapCut-fluent fan-edit video-maker was brimming with anticipation for what promised to be the most exciting link-up of the century: the lead acting duo of TV’s hottest show, Heated Rivalry, Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie; everyone’s favorite Irish hottie, Paul Mescal; and the queen of Brat summer herself, Charli XCX. When a few photos of potential seating plans for the awards leaked online earlier this week, showing those entertainment darlings arranged around the same table, social media was sent into a frenzy over the imagined hijinks that the seatmates would get into—a dream blunt rotation, indeed!
But when the awards ceremony finally kicked off on Sunday night, Williams and Storrie were nowhere to be found in the vicinity of Charli and Mescal. Instead, the actors—who, with the immense popularity of the gay hockey show, have quickly graduated from the realm of struggling actors cum waiters to bona fide rising stars—were spotted toward the back of the room, much to the chagrin of their many online fans, who are mourning the seating change as a massive hit to the queer community. The joke is on us: We—and even Williams himself, it turns out—should’ve known better than to expect youthful, in-the-know fun from a major Hollywood awards show.
In hindsight, the army of Heated Rivalry fans probably shouldn’t have put so much stock in what amounted to rumors from the internet. (The names displayed at the Globes tables before Sunday were not necessarily a set-in-stone seating arrangement.) But the whole disappointing turn of events is emblematic of one of the biggest problems with this year’s Golden Globes: Hollywood’s second most important awards had no idea how to handle the most talked-about new show on television.
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One would think that the Globes—an awards show known for being more laid-back and boozy than the Oscars—would embrace the ultra-steamy megahit, which follows two rival hockey players who engage in a yearslong gay romance, especially since TV accounts for half of the awards’ remit. Even just as a pop-culture reference, Heated Rivalry provides plenty of material for the Globes to play with, from jokes about vividly depicted on-screen sex (a common topic of conversation when it comes to the series) to the passion it’s inflamed in virtually every woman and queer person you know. With Nikki Glaser, a comedian who is not afraid of sexual innuendo, at the helm as the night’s host, setting the Heated Rivalry stars up in front-row seats as an ongoing bit throughout the broadcast seemed like a slam dunk.
But there was no ongoing bit, no mention of the show in the opening monologue, and little Heated Rivalry presence overall. The best we got was one middling joke from Glaser, who quipped that she hopes the “success of Heated Rivalry is proof that American audiences are ready for more shows about hockey,” and a brief setup between Williams and Storrie before they presented the award for Best Supporting Female Actor in a TV Series, during which the Globes had UFC fighters Mackenzie Dern and Brian Ortega come onstage for “extra security” because the actors are “so hot right now they get mobbed everywhere they go.”
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Thanks to their chemistry, Storrie and Williams were one of the better presenting duos of the mostly dull night. Storrie feigned nervousness upon taking the stage, and Williams suggested he pretend everyone in the audience were “… you know,” to which Storrie responded: “Yeah, I don’t really know if that works, considering everyone’s seen us … you know.” Williams then expressed doubt that everyone in that audience had watched Heated Rivalry, to which Storrie responded: “But their trainers have … and their moms have … their daughters have.” They finished by cheekily greeting their target audience, with a funny “Hi, moms! Hi, daughters!”
The duo’s hunch that the roomful of A-listers was unfamiliar with the series was proved correct, when the applause was fairly lackluster after Williams’ leading question, prompting Storrie to hilariously reply, “That’s a maybe.” Reports from the audience at the awards also hint that some big names in the audience were confused as to what a Heated Rivalry is.
FULL VIDEO OF HUDCON PRESENTING THE GOLDEN GLOBES AWARD IF YOU CARE pic.twitter.com/ioQtmfZ9Dh
— cleo (@asturiat) January 12, 2026
While it’s no sin to have not seen Heated Rivalry, it doesn’t reflect well on the Globes that apparently no one on the party-planning committee knew how best to incorporate a buzzy show and streaming miracle into a Hollywood institution that has been trying to maintain relevance and attract younger audiences. All the night’s ceremony had in its tank was one pretty bad musical number, too many toothless jokes about Warner Bros., and yet another dig about the age of Leonardo DiCaprio’s partners. Here was a bow-tied gift of charismatic young talent, guaranteed online virality, and sex (hey, it sells!), and stodgy old Hollywood had no idea how to take advantage of it.
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I won’t begrudge, say, Steven Spielberg for presumably living on a different plane from the likes of Heated Rivalry. But for the other industry execs and movie stars in the room, I have to say: C’mon, man! No one is too old to fujoshi out on what is already intended to be a hedonistic night! Live a little and enjoy the gay sex hockey melodrama like everyone else is!
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