Constance Wu didn’t plan to get quite so candid in her new book.
The actress alleges sexual harassment by a Fresh Off the Boat producer andwrites about being sexually assaulted in her twenties, but making that publicwasn’t part of her plan when she started her essay collection, Making aScene.
“Everybody thinks it’s a book about Fresh Off the Boat, or my tweets about_Fresh Off the Boat. But that was the last essay I wrote, and it was one Ireally did not want to write,” Wu told _The Hollywood Reporter. “My editorkept pushing it and finally I was like, ‘Fine, I’ll write it as an exercisebut I’m not publishing it. I thought I’d closed that chapter of my life.”
Of the harassment — she alleges that an unidentified Asian American maleproducer frequently harassed and intimated her, including asking for “sexyselfies,” exhibiting controlling behavior and inappropriately touching her –the Crazy Rich Asians star compartmentalised it.
“I was resistant … because I know there are people who have had way worsestories than what I had to go through,” she said. “Objectively, I don’t quote’think it’s that bad,’ but [the experience was] something that I swallowed fora long time in an attempt to preserve something for somebody else. And bydoing that, I think I am a contributor to perpetuating a system that is onethat I no longer care to uphold. Even though at the time of the show I waslike, ‘I dealt with it, it was hard, but I moved on and I prevailed, I don’tneed to talk about it anymore,’ I realized I also had a lot of fear of thecriticism and judgment I might get from people saying that what I experiencedwasn’t so bad. Me talking about it is more important than my fear of talkingabout it. The whole point is that people shouldn’t have had to go through itat all.”
Writing about it also helped the Hustlers actress release some of the”shame” she carried because she made herself believe she contributed in someway “because I was trying so hard to be part of the Boys’ Club. I realized Ididn’t give myself enough space to feel the wound … It makes me forgive myselffor all the times where I wasn’t my best [on the set]… Writing it on paperhelped me realize all of that.”
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At the end of the day, “I pretty much share everything. I didn’t think I wasgoing to.” That includes the Fresh Off the Boat essay as well as her “rapeessay.” Wu was in her twenties when she was dated raped. She said no,repeatedly, to a man she was on a second date with, but she gave up. He wastwice her size and she was scared he would become violent. She told THR thatthe most shameful part of the experience was “where I talk about having anorgasm while being raped. I didn’t want to include that… I’m ashamed of it andworried it will open up the possibilities for criticism and questioning It’sthe same process that led me to tweet about my suicide attempt, I didn’t wantto talk about it but decided it might help someone and that means more than mybeing afraid.”
Wu also touched on these topics — and delved deeper into her 2019 suicideattempt – on Tuesday’s Good Morning America . It all started with a coupleof tweets. Wu thought Fresh Off the Boat was over after Season 5, explainingthe network gave her “their blessing” to pursue other projects. So when ABCannounced the show was renewed for a sixth season, she lashed out on Twitter.(“So upset right now that I’m literally crying. Ugh. F,” she wrote,followed by “Fing hell.”) She quickly apologizes, saying she had been”dramatic.”
“I’d gotten this other job [offers] that I was really excited about and I wasready for a clean slate,” Wu said on GMA. “I was ready to stop working at aplace that held so many memories of sexual harassment and shame and fear. Sowhen I found out that I couldn’t move on, I felt — honestly, in that moment, Ifelt betrayed and I felt song to.”
She continued, “I felt a little reckless and I felt like I had been quiet forso long that I needed to finally make a sound. I didn’t care how it sounded.And it came out sounding pretty bad. My tweets were really graceless. And theywere like me being drunk and dramatic at a bar.”
The “backlash was immediate,” she said. “There was a huge pile on. I wasessentially ‘canceled’ for coming off as ungrateful.” She was called a divaand selfish for not thinking of the other people who worked on the show aswell as the importance of the show’s representation. Cutting deep was the factthat it was “really the Asian American community that … ostracized or avoidedme the most.”
At her lowest while navigating the turmoil, she received direct messages froma former college, an Asian actress whom she did not identify, who she saidshamed her by calling her a “disgrace” and “blight on [the] Asian Americancommunity.” The person said she could never undo “the damage I’d done to thecommunity.”
Wu was so rattled she started “thinking that I needed to end my own life,” sherecalled. “It’s crazy that a few DMs could do that.”
She said her attempted suicide, which she first publicly revealed in July,”wasn’t a thoughtful thing. I got the DMs and I thought, ‘OK, I can’t be aliveanymore.’ … I pulled myself over the balcony of my apartment building and Iwas going to jump. Talking about it now makes my palms itch, because Iremember holding onto it. help. I was in therapy and under observation for along time.”
Wu said she was diagnosed with clinical depression “long before” her suicideattempt, but the scare led her to seek professional help immediately. In herbook, she reveals she was committed to a mental hospital. “I was in therapyevery day for a while, and then I was in therapy three times a week. I’m stillin therapy,” she told GMA.
As for whether she’s spoken to the unidentified actress whom she claims senther the triggering DMs, Wu said hasn’t, but she forgives her.
“Listen, if I’m asking people to think of the context in which I made mymistake of those reckless tweets, I think that I can look at somebody who didsomething that was hurtful to me and try to imagine maybe she was goingthrough something, too,” Wu said.
Wu also holds no grudges over the movement to “cancel” her because it’s helpedher evolve.
“In many ways, it helped me learn a lot about myself. And sure, there arepeople who aren’t gonna forgive me. That’s about their own journey. I do feellike I’ve had the opportunity to change,” she said . “In the end. I’m, in … astrange way kind of glad for it.”
Wu will continue talking about these topics and more on Wednesday’s Red TableTalk. A preview of her chat at Jada Pinkett Smith’s table shows her gettingemotional about those DMs and her suicide attempt.
“I felt like nothing I could ever do would be enough,” she said of hermindset. “I felt like the only thing that would prove to her that I felt asbad as she thought I deserved to feel would be if I died. I felt like eventhat might not be enough because I felt the world was saying: You will neversuffer as much as you deserve to suffer. You deserve to pay for this and bepunished for this.”
If you or someone you know are experiencing suicidal thoughts, call 911, orcall the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or text HOMEto the Crisis Text Line at 741741.