Constance Wu says she was sexually harassed by a Fresh Off the Boat producer
I had a pretty traumatic experience my first couple of years on 'Fresh Off the Boat,' @ConstanceWu says at #TAF22. “That show was historic for Asian Americans … and I did not want to sully the reputation of the one show we had representing us. So I kept my mouth shut.” pic.twitter.com/fR4KJyYoKm
- The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) September 23, 2022
At the Atlantic Festival, Constance Wu said that she was sexually harassed and intimidated by an Asian-American senior producer during the first two seasons of Fresh Off the Boat. In another interview, she said that he coerced her into attending a Lakers game with him, during which he touched her thigh, grazed her crotch, and then became cold to her after she told him to stop. He then grabbed her upper arm and jiggled the fat behind her tricep, saying, "You have big arms. That means you're strong. Strong women are great. Good for you." He was also very controlling, telling her to send him selfies and to run all of her business decisions by him.
After the show became successful and she was no longer afraid of losing her job, she began standing up to the perpetrator. At the time, she felt that because she handled it on her own by saying no to the producer, no one else needed to know about it since she did not want to sully the reputation of the first show to star Asian-Americans in over twenty years.
She said, "A few people knew [the harassment] was happening and to go to work every day and see those people who knew that he was sexually harassing me being buddy-buddy with him felt like a betrayal every time." She added, "I don't blame them because he could fire them too."
Since then, she has met several Asian-American actresses who said they were also harassed by the same Asian-American producer. She said, "He treated white and Black women with the utmost respect and deference and reserved his misogyny and power plays for Asian women."
So how does this all relate to her infamous tweet about the show being renewed?
She said that bad feelings don't go away just because you want them to and when you try to suppress them, they inevitably come out in other ways. She had been told that the show probably wouldn't be renewed, and she was looking forward to starting over somewhere without the memories of being sexually harassed at her job. When the show was renewed, she made some "profane, reckless tweets" which she admitted looked really bad. She said, "I loved everybody on that crew, and I loved working on that show, but it had that history of abuse that it started with, and even though I handled it after two years, I was looking forward to a clean slate."
She said that although the backlash from those tweets negatively affected her career, it ended up affecting her life positively because being forced to take a break from her career ended up making her go to therapy so she could process what had happened.
In the Atlantic video, she also talks about her 2019 suicide attempt, reconciling with her mom after not speaking to each other for five years, her three year break from social media, and the stigma of discussion mental health in the Asian-American community.
Full interview:
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