Before he was Scott Hunter, François Arnaud spent a music video being carried around like a bride by a shirtless, masked cowboy.
That cowboy was Orville Peck. The video was How Far Will We Take It?, Peck’s 2024 duet with Noah Cyrus, and more than two years after it dropped, it keeps finding a whole new audience.
The reason is simple. Arnaud is now one of the most-wanted men on TV, and Peck is having the biggest month of his career. Put the two of them in the same smoky, sweaty, very bisexual three minutes, and it was only a matter of time.
The Video Heated Rivalry Fans Keep Stumbling Onto
How Far Will We Take It? landed on May 10, 2024, alongside Peck’s duets album Stampede. Director Austin Peters shot it like a moody Western fever dream, and the cast list on YouTube is exactly three names long: Peck, Cyrus and Arnaud.
At the time, it was a gorgeous video from a queer country star. Then Heated Rivalry premiered on November 28, 2025, and everything changed.
Scroll the comments today and you can practically see the moment it happened. The most-liked recent ones come from fans who found their way there through the show, including one who admits the song found them only because they’d watched too many Heated Rivalry clips.
The video has now passed 1.5 million views. And it isn’t only fans. When Variety wrote up Peck’s Hollywood Bowl show on September 18, it made a point of mentioning the “pre-‘Heated Rivalry'” Arnaud in a love-triangle storyline.
So what exactly are all these people rediscovering?
One Man, Two Singers and Very Few Shirts
Here’s the setup. Peck and Cyrus are both in love with the same man. Arnaud is the man.
Cyrus gets the golden-hour scenes, perched on a horse while Arnaud circles her in a leather jacket and a mesh tank top. Peck spends much of his screen time in a black-and-white studio, singing shirtless in his fringed mask and cowboy hat, with every tattoo on display.
Then the two men share the frame, and the temperature goes up. Peck lifts Arnaud into his arms. He cradles his face, grinning under the mask. At one point he’s singing from a giant crescent moon with a banjo, which is somehow the least dramatic thing that happens.
Arnaud never sings a note, and he doesn’t need to. Between the denim vest, the turquoise bolo tie and that brooding stare, he plays the object of desire like he’s done it before.
As for how the triangle resolves, we’ll let you watch that for yourself. Just know that somebody ends up alone on a floral couch.
Arnaud Wasn’t Just Playing Bi
A big part of why the video lands is that Arnaud isn’t pretending. He came out as bisexual on Instagram on September 20, 2020, just ahead of Bi Visibility Day, six years ago this month.
His post explained why so many bi men stay quiet, including that “‘masculinity’ is a most fragile currency, ready to nose-dive at the first sign of vulnerability or difference,” as Out reported at the time.
He ended it with a line that still hits: “Not confused or trying to look edgy. Not disloyal. Not ashamed. Not invisible.”
The most-liked comment under the video, with more than 2,000 likes, puts the casting better than we could: “hiring a bisexual actor to be a bisexual love interest for both the singers of a duet is inspired.”
Why Everyone Suddenly Knows His Name
For most of his career, the 41-year-old Montreal native was the handsome guy you recognized from The Borgias, Schitt’s Creek or Yellowjackets. Heated Rivalry changed that. His turn as Scott Hunter, the New York hockey captain who falls for smoothie-shop barista Kip (Robbie G.K.), made him a breakout star of a Peabody-winning global hit.
His calendar hasn’t slowed down since. He’s back as Scott in Heated Rivalry season 2, which filmed in Toronto this summer, per The Hollywood Reporter. The same report has him joining Mike Birbiglia’s summer camp comedy Old Friends New Friends with Kathryn Newton, Lucas Hedges and Patrick Schwarzenegger.
There’s also the dark dramedy Godstar, where he plays a charismatic former lover named Sky Blue, plus Hulu’s limited series Count My Lies. He’s also set for his Broadway debut in Three Days of Rain opposite David Corenswet.
Meanwhile, Orville Is Having the Month of His Life
If Arnaud is the reason people click, Peck is the reason they stay. And September 2026 has been a lot.
First came the cover of Playgirl, making the 38-year-old the first out gay country star to front the magazine. He stripped down to white briefs and chaps, kept the mask on, and explained the appeal to Playgirl: “What’s sexier than a little bit of rebellion? And chaps? If you don’t think that’s gay I don’t know what to tell you,” as Out reported.
A week later came Mule, his most personal album yet. It traces the year he got sober after his team found him overdosing in a hotel room in June 2023, which Peck talked about openly with Variety. It also features a lyric about making out with a guy on the Raiders, which he says he had the player’s blessing to sing.
The same night, he headlined the Hollywood Bowl for the first time. Cyrus made a surprise appearance to duet with him on Atchafalaya, and Peck dedicated his Willie Nelson duet to “all the gay cowboys,” telling the crowd, “We exist. We walk among you.”
Next up, he plays the masked fighter Vega in Street Fighter, in theaters October 16.
Two years later, the song’s big question finally has an answer.
How far will we take it? As far as Heated Rivalry fans can carry it.