Constance Wu, an actress, returned to social media on Thursday after taking a nearly three-year hiatus to reveal that she had tried to commit suicide in 2019 following a string of unfavorable tweets.
The “Hustlers” and “Crazy Rich Asians” actress said in her memoir, which will be published this fall, that she was “afraid of coming back on social media because [she] almost losing [her] life from it,” but that she still wanted to share her experience to open up a wider dialogue with Asian Americans about mental health.
In May 2019, Wu’s ABC sitcom “Fresh Off the Boat” received a sixth season renewal. Wu tweeted, “So sad right now that I’m literally crying. “Ugh,” then more curse words. Later, she claimed that the tweets were “poorly timed (with) the news of the show” and came “on the heels of a bad day.”
Wu, however, said in a recent statement on Twitter that the backlash was intense and quick. She received criticism from a large number of people, some of whom were fellow actresses, for coming out as unsupportive of the success of her series, which was one of the few comedies with an entirely Asian cast in the lead parts. Wu claimed she felt like she “didn’t deserve to live anymore” after receiving a message from another Asian actress who claimed she had “become a blight on the Asian American community.”
She added that after surviving her suicide attempt, she decided to take a break from performing in order to concentrate on her mental health. But she went on to say that she was now going back to social media “to tell (her) story so that it can help someone with their journey.”
“If we want to be seen, really seen … we need to let all of ourselves be seen, including the parts we’re scared of or ashamed of — parts that, however imperfect, require care and attention,” she said.
Wu just made a guest appearance on Chris Pratt’s Amazon Prime comedy “The Terminal List,” and she also co-stars with Javier Bardem in the upcoming family movie “Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile.”
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