Actor Paul Wesley from "The Vampire Diaries" never expected that three words in a TikTok video by an Israeli fan would cost him thousands of hostile responses and threats to boycott him as an actor, all because he dared to mention the words "Israel" and "love" in the same sentence.
The moment when celebrity glamour intersected with geopolitics occurred last week on a Canadian street, captured in a short, five-second TikTok video filmed by Israeli TikTok creator Hodaya, who encountered Wesley by chance. During a casual conversation where she told him she was from Israel, he responded, "I love Israel!"
Paul Wesley shows love for Israel during interaction with fan. pic.twitter.com/ee3RTjD1yw
— Buzzing Pop (@BuzzingPop) July 26, 2025
The video immediately went up on Hodaya's TikTok account and received hundreds of thousands of views and thousands of comments – some from users who couldn't contain their excitement and expressed jealousy about the meeting between the two, but some chose to flood it with Palestinian flags and speak out against what they saw as his support for Israel.
This, as it turns out, was only the beginning of a wave of harsh responses that Wesley (43) apparently received privately, since Saturday he felt the need to do something he claimed he never does – he responded to the video and the responses he received in a tweet posted by an entertainment account called Buzzing Pop on X, emphasizing that his words were completely taken out of context and asking not to make what he said political or attribute opinions to him that weren't his. "I never comment on these things however: appreciating the aesthetic beauty of a country should not be misconstrued as a political statement, let alone an endorsement of war. I would hope we can move away from distorting remarks into false narratives. Thanks."
Paul Wesley speaks out after backlash over video showing love for Israel:
"I never comment on these things however: appreciating the aesthetic beauty of a country should not be misconstrued as a political statement, let alone an endorsement of war. I would hope we can move away… pic.twitter.com/ofJ1mM0ljF
— Buzzing Pop (@BuzzingPop) July 26, 2025
Unsurprisingly, his response generated a renewed wave of thousands of responses on the original tweet and its shares, with the majority speaking out against him in harsh words and hurling accusations at him, including supporting an "apartheid state" and "baby killers." "You're praising a country that starves babies and calls it self-defense," dozens hurled at him. "What's so beautiful about a country built on expulsion and murder?" others wrote, demanding he "free Palestine." For many, the mere mention of Israel alongside the word "love" provided sufficient grounds for condemnation and accusations of various historical and contemporary sins, including, of course, conquest and genocide.
Some went further and said that, despite admiring him in the past, his lack of support for Palestinians outweighed their love for him and they were stopping following him. "You support Zionists, you and all your friends in the 'Vampire Diaries' cast are Zionists. You love Israel, but you didn't say a word in favor of Palestinians," they accused. "He probably wasted all his money, so he's now pandering to Jews and Israelis because that's how it is in Hollywood. You're pandering to a state of Zionists who starve and kill children."
