This story originally appeared on Them.
Gay people, this is not a drill. Multi-hyphenate lesbian super model Lauren Chan will be joining the cast of Heated Rivalry for season 2.
Here at Them, we’re big fans of Lauren. In fact, this very publication literally named Chan “The Hottest Women on Earth” in 2025, so talk about turning up the heat for America’s favorite horny gay television sensation. Come April 2027, she’ll be appearing alongside Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie for the season 2 premiere, according to a press release issued today.
Chan will play Gen, described as a Quebecois professional photographer for the Ottawa Centaurs in the original Game Changers book series. Though Gen dates a man in the original book series, we have yet to find out how closely to the letter the character will be in the television adaptation. We hope this means that the “gay hockey butt show” will finally be featuring a lesbian storyline, as sapphic fans online have been frothing at the mouth for one.
The former Glamour magazine editor has long been trailblazing in the fashion industry and was considered “integral to the rise of body diversity in media.” While she’s always smashed boundaries with her work, Chan has been undergoing a bit of a personal renaissance over the last several years. She created plus-size fashion brand Henning in 2018, which was later acquired by Universal in 2023. In 2025, she became the first out lesbian to appear solo on the cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit. In the last year, Chan has also appeared as a guest judge on Canada’s Drag Race and Project Runway, hosted red carpets for Netflix Canada and E Talk, competed in The Traitors Canada, and made her acting debut in The Devil Wears Prada 2.
This meteoric rise hasn’t been limited to her professional life. She also tied the knot with her wife, director Hayley Kosan in 2025, in a chic lesbian “it” couple wedding featured in various publications including Toronto Life, ELLE, The New York Times, and, of course, Them.
We hope she’ll be joining the growing canon of lesbian characters on our screens, but are happy with her casting regardless of who she plays.
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