The “Hustlers” and “Crazy Rich Asian” actress, whose memoir will be published this fall, has written that while she was “afraid to go back to social media because [she] almost lost [her] life out of it,” she wanted to share her story to start a larger conversation with Asian Americans about mental health.
After her ABC sitcom Fresh Off the Boat was renewed for a sixth season in May 2019, Wu appeared distraught by the news, tweeting: “So upset right now I’m literally crying. Ugh”, followed by expletives. She later said she sent the tweets “at the end of a rough day and they were mistimed (with) the news of the show”.
But the backlash was swift and fierce, Wu said in her new statement on Twitter. Countless users, including several other actors, criticized her for seeming ungrateful for the success of her series, which was one of very few sitcoms with an all-Asian cast in central roles. When a fellow Asian actress texted her and said she had “made a blight on the Asian American community,” Wu said she felt like she “didn’t deserve to live anymore.”
She survived her suicide attempt and put her acting career on hold to focus on her mental health in recent years, she said. But she’s turning to social media now, she explained, “to share (her) story so it can help someone with theirs.
“If we want to see each other, really first … we must allow everything to see ourselves, including the parts we fear or are ashamed of — the parts that, however imperfect, require care and attention,” she wrote.
Wu has resumed acting, most recently appearing in the Amazon Prime series “The Terminal List” alongside Chris Pratt, and she stars in the upcoming children’s film “Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile” with Javier Bardem.
