Constance Wu Says She Was Sexually Harassed While Working on ‘Fresh Off the Boat’
Constance Wu alleges in her upcoming book that she was sexually harassed while working on Fresh Off the Boat by a senior member of the sitcom’s production team.
Speaking to the New York Times ahead of Making a Scene’s release, Wu opened about the alleged sexual harassment she says she experienced, which in the book she attributes to an unnamed person she refers to only by an initial.
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In Making a Scene, Wu writes that in her first year working on Fresh Off the Boat, the man was initially controlling, but she still viewed him as a “friend and a protector,” the Times reported.
“Fresh Off the Boat was my first-ever TV show,” Wu said. “I was thrown into this world. I don’t have parents in the industry. And because I was 30, people thought I knew what I was doing. It made me paranoid and embarrassed.”
However, while attending a sporting event with the man in 2015, Wu claims he put his hand on her thigh and grazed her crotch. Wu said she told him to stop, and the two continued working together without incident. However, after the series was renewed for a second season, Wu and the man had an “explosive” argument about attending a film festival together and they eventually stopped speaking to one another.
The Crazy Rich Asians actress previously revealed she attempted suicide following the backlash she received in 2019 after she sent a series of tweets expressing disappointment about the renewal of Fresh Off the Boat.
“It ignited outrage and internet shaming that got pretty severe,” Wu wrote when she returned to social media in July. “I felt awful about what I’d said, and when a few DMs from a fellow Asian actress told me I’d become a blight on the Asian American community, I started feeling like I didn’t even deserve to live anymore.”
“Looking back, it’s surreal that a few DMs convinced me to end my own life, but that’s what happened,” she continued. “Luckily, a friend found me and rushed me to the ER.”
Wu didn’t elaborate to the Times whether the harassment she faced on Fresh Off the Boat contributed to why she was “so upset” about the sitcom’s then-renewal.
Wu’s Making a Scene, which she said she wrote “to reach out and help people talk about the uncomfortable stuff in order to understand it, reckon with it, and open pathways to healing,” is out in November.
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