Constance Wu is telling her story.
The 40-year-old actress has revealed that she was sexually harassed on the set of ABC’s Fresh Off The Boat. She starred on the show as Jessica Huang.
In her new memoir titled Making A Scene, Constance shared that a senior member of the production team harassed her. In the passage, she refers to the producer only by an initial. She alleged that during the series’ first season in 2015, the producer exhibited controlling behaviors like “demanding that she run all her business matters past him and telling her what to wear.”
She stated that at first, she put up with the treatment. But things escalated after they attended a sporting event and he reportedly placed his hand on her thigh, with his hand ultimately grazing her crotch.
Constance said she had asked him to stop and they brushed off the incident, and that she started to feel more empowered as the series went on. However, following an argument over attending a film festival together, she and the producer are no longer on speaking terms.
She revealed that she did not say anything at the time due to fear of consequences. In an appearance at the Atlantic Festival last week, Constance said:
“I kept my mouth shut for a really long time about a lot of sexual harassment and intimidation that I received the first two seasons of the show. Because, after the first two seasons, once it was a success, once I was no longer scared of losing my job, that’s when I was able to start saying ‘no’ to the harassment, ‘no’ to the intimidation, from this particular producer.
And, so I thought: ‘you know what? I handled it, nobody has to know, I don’t have to stain this Asian American producer’s reputation, I don’t have to stain the reputation of the show.’”
In her new memoir, Constance also bravely spoke about the sexual assault she experienced at the beginning of her career with a man that she identifies simply as “Ty.” She said that after their second date, he took her up to his apartment to hand her a gift. This quickly escalated to “some fooling around.”
She then detailed:
“He took off his pants and started putting the condom on – an obvious signal for sex – which I did not want. So I said, ‘Oh gosh, I’m sorry, I’m not ready to have sex with you.’ I said it clearly. But he merely smiled, as if he knew better, as if my vagina’s wetness was more telling than the words coming out of my mouth. He gently got on top of me and held my face in his hands. He kissed my lips, my forehead, and looked into my eyes.
He was being so tender. I repeated, as seriously as I could, ‘Really, I’m not ready for sex,’ my face flushing. He smiled at me again like I was a baby kitten, held me close, kissed me, gently moved my legs apart, and then he…did it anyway.”
Constance added that she seemed to have buried the memory of the incident but that this changed when she returned from filming 2018’s Crazy Rich Asians:
“I’d just woken up from a nap when the realization hit me like a flood. Ty raped me. He raped me, and I hadn’t done anything about it.”
She stated that she struggled with telling her story, but concluded:
“I did not consent to sex. Maybe it wasn’t violent, but it was rape. Period.”
