We probably all knew it was only a matter of time. Last December, just as Heated Rivalry was blowing up, and became the present that everyone opened for the holidays in 2025, Hudson Williams did an interview with The Cut about his skincare routine that went viral immediately – credit to Carol Lee, the writer who pitched this because her idea has resulted in entertainment for all of us and actual money for Hudson. When he showed up in Korea a couple of weeks ago, it all came full circle.
The first official images from the campaign have now been released. And they include some of the products that he did indeed talk about during that feature in The Cut.
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There are, however, some other takeaways beyond the fact that Hudson is getting paid. For starters, it’s beautiful that he’s doing a brand deal for Korean beauty specifically, given his background, as his mother is Korean and she was with him on the trip. It’s not even been a year since Hudson became a star but his experience with fame so far has been inclusive of his culture. No doubt, there is a certain downside to this with the racism that has been directed at him… but we can also appreciate and celebrate that he was specifically cast in the role of Shane Hollander because of his ethnicity not in spite of it; and this new skincare deal 100% is reflective and connected to his background. This would not have been the case less than a generation ago.
What is different though, as you can see from these images, is also representative of him too. It is extremely unorthodox for a Korean skincare brand, and any East Asian brand, really, to feature a male spokesperson, whether they’re a model or a model actor/idol, with facial hair. The male lead in almost every C and K-drama almost never has facial hair and if he does, it’s either because he’s aged or because he’s suffered which… is a whole other conversation about East Asian beauty standards that we can get into another time. My point is, Hudson has, with these photos, flexed a level of autonomy. You’ll never convince me that if the brand could have made it happen, they would have had him shave. But, clearly, they took him any way they could. And, obviously, he looks fine AF.
You know what else is really cute? The video of him introducing himself in Korean. Like fully in Korean. Because he says his name in Korean – not Hudson Williams but… Hud-uh-son Williams, LOOOLLLL.
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I love it when my Korean friends switch over to Korean-English when they’re in Korea or speaking with their Korean family members. I do the same in Chinese. Like I’ll add an “ah” or a “lah” at the end of every sentence. I’ll turn “ble” at the end of a word, like “table”, into “tay-bow”, LOL.
And in Korean it’s often the extra syllable. BTS puts this into their songs. Like “Fake Love”. They don’t pronounce fake as one syllable, it’s two: “I’m so sick of this fake-uh love, fake-uh love, fake-uh love”.
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