Constance Wu says that she was the victim of sexual harassment by a producer on ABC's sitcom, Fresh Off the Boat, in her new memoir, Making a Scene. Wu was a star in the series during its run from 2015 to 2020.
“‘Fresh Off the Boat’ was my first-ever TV show,” Wu explained to the New York Times. “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.”
Wu says that she attended a sporting event with the producer where he “placed his hand on her thigh, his hand ultimately grazing her crotch," as noted by the Times. Wu also accused the unnamed producer of controlling behavior such as “demanding that she run all her business matters past him and telling her what to wear."
Wu explained why she decided to make the incidents public during a panel at Friday’s Atlantic Festival in Washington, D.C.
“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,” she said, according to Variety.
She added: “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.’”
Making a Scene is available on October 4.
[Via]