‘I’m Done With Shame’: Constance Wu Speaks Out About Alleged Harassment
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The leading lady in a hit sitcom and a record-breaking summer blockbuster, Constance Wu appeared to have it all in 2019. So people were shocked when the actress was publically upset when her show Fresh Off The Boat was renewed for a sixth and final season— leading to a flurry of hate on social media. On Wednesday’s episode of Red Table Talk, Wu told hosts Jada Pinkett-Smith, Willow Smith, and Adrienne Banfield-Norris that her response to the show’s renewal was driven by alleged sexual harassment from a Fresh Off The Boat producer— an emotionally turbulent time that drove her to attempt suicide.
Roughly based on the life of Asian-American chef Eddie Huang, Fresh Off The Boat premiered in 2015 and was praised for its Asian-American cast and positive portrayal of Asian family life. But behind the scenes, Wu said an Asian producer of the show verbally harassed her, and allegedly placed his hand on her crotch.
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She added that the series’ positive reception made her feel like she’d be ruining the only positive Asian-American representation at the time if she dared to speak up about her experience.
“Because this show was sort of a beacon of representation for Asian Americans, and I sort of became a symbol of representation, I didn’t want to sully the one show with sexual harassment claims against the one Asian American man who was doing all this better work for the community,” Wu said Wednesday on the Facebook Watch series. “So I think that’s sort of what happened when I tweeted that stuff. It seemed out of character if you don’t know me and don’t know all the pain and abuse I had to swallow for years.”
The news comes after Wu’s bombshell July announcement when the actress returned to Twitter after a three-year absence and revealed that the backlash from her tweets led her to contemplate suicide. She added that the final straw was a hurtful message from a former colleague and Asian-American actress calling her a “blight” to the community.
“I read these DMs from an Asian actress, somebody who should have been my ally, and I felt like nothing I could ever do would be enough,” Wu said on Wednesday’s show. “I felt like the only thing that would prove to her that I felt as bad as she thought I deserved to feel would be if I died. I felt like even that might not be enough because I felt like the world was saying, ‘You will never suffer as much as you deserve to suffer. You deserve to pay for this and be punished for this.’”
The actress credited a friend for finding her on a ledge and taking her to the hospital. Wu details these experiences and more in her memoir Making A Scene, released on Oct. 4. She said she wrote the book “to reach out and help people talk about the uncomfortable stuff in order to understand it, reckon with it, and open pathways to healing.” While she still feels like the Asian American community is avoiding her, Wu said she is done apologizing to people who still believe she’ll never be good enough.
“I think the people who still want me to apologize and to feel remorse are the people like that Asian actress who say that nothing I ever do will be enough. That’s actually your issue,” Wu said. “It’s not about me anymore.”
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