'Heated Rivalry' Star François Arnaud Addresses Online Harassment & Talks Navigating Fame

François Arnaud is responding to all of the hate on social media.

The 40-year-old actor, who plays Scott Hunter in Heated Rivalry, has been facing nasty comments from trolls over the past week amid speculation about his dating life after he was spotted at the airport with co-star Connor Storrie. This led him to purge his Instagram following list where he unfollowed all of his co-stars.

He then seemingly responded to all of the harassment by sharing a selfie sticking up his middle finger, and then followed back his co-stars.

In a new interview, François addressed dealing with all the of the online hate and talked about navigating fame.

Keep reading to find out more…“It’s been incredible, but also a bit scary,” François said of all the attention he’s received since Heated Rivalry premiered, per The Toronto Star.

“I’ve always valued normalcy, and so there’s an adjustment period there,” he added.

Due to all of the new attention and people following him around, François admitted that he’s reconsidering his living arrangements in Los Angeles.

“I’m like, ‘Oh, maybe a little bungalow with street access, not on a gated property, is not the best thing,’” he said with a laugh. “So yeah, I’m moving into a building with a doorman.”

As for all of the online firestorm, François said, “In general, fans have been incredibly positive and respectful. For the ones that aren’t, I think it’s a lot of younger fans who don’t really understand the difference between reality and fiction.”

“I honestly wish they would just rewatch the show, because it doesn’t seem like they got its message,” he continued. “Pay attention more closely. Did we watch the same show?”

Also in the interview, François responded to headlines about his unfollowing spree, insisting that people are reading too much into it.

“What’s happening is that I’m unfollowing everyone, and Instagram won’t let me do that all at once,” he explained. “You can only unfollow a certain amount of people over 24 hours, which I did not know at the time.”

He also said that his middle finger selfie has nothing to do with the online harassment.

“It’s completely unrelated to that,” François said. “I mean, ‘completely’ maybe would be a lie, but mostly unrelated to that. I’ve done these ‘spot the differences’ posts for a long time, and I just thought it was nice to do something with Hudson [Williams], and that’s it.”

Due to all of the attention he’s been getting on social media, François said he now spends less time online, has blocked X on his phone, and has stopped reading comments.

“It’s nice. It’s giving me an excuse to just log off and not pay attention to that,” he said. “I’m reading a lot of great scripts and meeting tons of great people and I want to read books and go for walks in the woods.”

In another recent interview, François explained why he finds Scott Hunter “a little frustrating to play.”