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To anyone with eyes and ears on the ground at New York Fashion Week (and the internet), it’s clear that Hudson Williams is the most famous man in the world right now. Ever since word hit the TL earlier this week that the Heated Rivalry star was set to co-host a Lunar New Year party with Bridgerton’s Yerin Ha, the question on everyone’s lips has been: How does one secure the invite?
By some miraculous force of nature (a.k.a. the lovely folks at Gold House, the AAPI-centered nonprofit that put on the event with Williams and Ha, alongside designers Prabal Gurung, Kim Shui, and Bach Mai), I did secure the invite. So come Thursday night, down I went to Chinese Tuxedo, prepared for exactly what was advertised: a night of karaoke and mahjong and dancing and a Bridgerton portrait studio.
As far as I could tell, the karaoke and mahjong and portrait studio—though lovely—were not anyone’s primary concern. The real draw of the evening was Williams—as I waited in line at the bar, at least three people around me were speculating on when he would arrive (soon), how long he would stay (the entire night), and if they could get a photo with him (everyone did). All three floors of the venue were packed for the first couple of hours, but it wasn’t until Ha and Williams emerged—the latter clad in a creamy white Prabal Gurung suit, a silky scarf draped around his neck and fastened with a rhinestone brooch—that the party really started.
A tangible vibe shift spread across the venue when the hosts joined the party, and wherever Williams went, a bulky throng followed as if magnetized; when he ducked into the mahjong room to play with his Heated Rivalry co-star Ksenia Daniela, a crowd hovered outside, people leaning around security to catch a glimpse of him through the curtained doorway. I need to emphasize that the guests at this party were largely industry professionals—journalists, actors, and entertainers who are used to being around celebrities, and probably wouldn’t bat an eye if the entire roster of Oscar nominees pulled up, much less endeavor to ask for a photo together. The effect Williams has on a room is unlike anything I’ve witnessed before—I wasn’t alive for Beatlemania, but I’m willing to bet that Hudsonmania is a stronger drug.
The DJ was playing bangers all night, but it wasn’t until Williams went down to the dance floor that people actually started to dance, and stayed dancing for hours and hours—an incredibly rare feat to pull off at a New York Fashion Week party, where, in my experience, you get a few lightly shimmying shoulders and nonchalant head nods at best. But this wasn’t just any New York Fashion Week party. The hosts were as approachable and accessible as anyone else in the room, the VIPs rarely stayed confined to the VIP section, and the entire night, everyone I encountered was simply happy to be there, celebrating Lunar New Year with the crowd and culture Gold House curated. And besides, when Hudson Williams and The Summer I Turned Pretty star Lola Tung, sunglasses on and cares checked at the door, are twirling each other across the room while ABBA booms through the speakers, how could anyone refrain from following suit?
Williams, as a first-time NYFW attendee and host, was everywhere at once—everyone who wanted to be near him got to be near him. First, he was beside the bar, exchanging a hug with Bowen Yang, and then he was on the other side of the dance floor, dropping it low to “My Neck, My Back,” and then conjuring a cowboy hat seemingly from thin air, playfully putting it on and taking it off the bopping heads of the circle that formed around him.
Williams greeted everyone who approached him like an old friend; hugs and arms slung over shoulders flowed faster than drinks from the open bar did, and everyone who came away from the loose line that had formed to get to him was left buzzing with their friends about the photos they took with Hudson, the conversations they had with him. I’ve only encountered Williams once since our GQ Hype shoot with him and Connor Storrie last year, but regardless, he did something very few celebrities do—much less ones who've experienced a come-up as fast and furious as his. He said he was so happy to see me again and actually looked like he meant it, yanking me in for a bear hug, asking how I’ve been, if I was having fun. After he smushed our faces in close and tapped our noses together for a photo, a woman remarked to me, “You’re the luckiest girl in the world. I’d die if I were you.”
Although there was a black rope separating the perimeter of the room as the VIP section, Williams hovered on the edge of it for the entire night, ducking under and back over and over again. He passed around light-up Hennessy batons and head-banged when Heated Rivalry anthem “All The Things She Said” came on, and pulled strangers into his dance circle, which also included groomer Aika Flores, Timid magazine founder Henry Wu, and the actor’s own mother, whom he brought with him to the party (and, at some point in the night, smoked a cigar with from the corner of the room, lit by a long-stem Bic lighter that I can only assume he was carrying in his crossbody bag all evening).
There is no word for his energy other than infectious, spreading out across all three floors of the venue, with Williams—who ditched his blazer and danced in a bicep-baring tank all night—at the center of it. There were several times, in fact, that myself and British GQ writer Iana Murray turned to each other and asked: “Wait—are we at the best party ever?”
At midnight, Williams turned 25 years old; a plate of dessert (rumored to be red bean mochi) with a single candle was brought out to him, and he closed his eyes to blow it out. When we were lamenting together on how old being 25 feels, I asked him what his birthday wish was. He turned somber and thought about it for a long moment. What he wished for, he told me, was for all of his friends and loved ones to “get everything they want and wish for in life.”
Although every email about the party firmly declared that it was to end at 1 a.m., around 12:45, when most of the guests had left and only a handful of attendees remained, Ha, Williams, and company headed downstairs for karaoke—and, naturally, everybody else followed suit. Lola Tung, Ksenia Daniela, and Avantika performed a Broadway-worthy rendition of Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated,” only marginally outdone by Sean Kaufman and Minnie Mills’s duet to the tastefully-selected Frank Ocean track “Super Rich Kids.” One a.m. came and went, and in the middle of “Bohemian Rhapsody” the clock ticked past 1:30. It wasn’t until my phone hit its last five percent that I decided to duck out—the birthday boy still vibing to the music, the party still in full swing, my phone already blowing up with more texts from people than I get on my birthday (including contacts I haven’t heard from since middle school crawling out of the woodwork), begging me to tell them everything.