The actress alleges that the co-worker sexually harassed her too.
Constance Wu is getting candid in her new memoir. In Making a Scene, the 40-year-old actress alleges that she faced harassment from an unnamed co-worker on Fresh Off the Boat, her ABC sitcom that aired its series finale in 2020 after a six-season run. ET has reached out to ABC for comment.
In her memoir, Wu claims that the man in question had a "catchphrase" he directed at her -- "You do what I say."
"In an industry where I hadn’t yet earned my stripes, I was grateful for his support," she writes, before alleging that the support came at a cost, as he "demanded a direct line to me at all times."
"Somehow he got my cell phone number before we’d even started filming," Wu claims. "When my agents tried to negotiate business matters on my behalf, he intervened by calling me directly, annoyed that he hadn’t known about it first. Scolding me until I felt guilty and apologized."
Eventually, Wu claims, conversations between herself and the man "started bleeding over into my personal life."
"He told me the way he preferred my hair... Told me I looked better in short skirts and should wear them more often 'while you still can,' he’d say with a smirk," she claims. "He kept tabs on all areas of my life: what other acting jobs I was auditioning for, which publicist to choose, what I wore in interviews, what parties I should go to, who I needed to be friends with, what I did in my spare time. He asked to see pictures of my female friends and would tell me if he’d f**k them or not. He constantly questioned me about my dating life, past and present."
"I didn’t complain about his behavior because I didn’t think I was upset about it. I liked him -- he was easygoing, funny, and in the know. I’ll admit that I sometimes even enjoyed it; it felt good to feel like part of the boys’ club." Wu adds. "So even when he got a bit power trip-y, I always did what he said. When he became controlling, I let him, rationalizing that he did know the industry better than I did. When he was downright offensive, I came up with tricks to play along without entirely compromising myself."
All that, she writes, "was annoying but tolerable." However, things allegedly changed one night, when they went to a Lakers game together.
While taking in the game, Wu claims that the man put a hand on her bare thigh and commented on its smoothness. When she protested, she claims he told her to "relax" and continued to move his hand upward "to graze her crotch." With that, Wu alleges, she said, "Dude. C’mon, stop. STOP!" He did, before allegedly commenting on how "big" her arms were.
"Aside from that basketball game, he never touched me inappropriately. To be honest, it didn’t feel like a big deal at the time. I was fine. Happy, even! I was genuinely grateful for his support, and it made him feel good to protect me, too," she writes. "It was a win-win situation where he was the helpful to my helpless."
When Fresh Off the Boat became a success, though, Wu writes that she "wasn’t so helpless anymore."
"That’s when I started getting tired," she writes. "Tired of [the man's] cues for excessive shows of gratitude, tired of the casual sexism, tired of him keeping tabs on all areas of my life."
She started saying no "to all the extra stuff," such as participating in an unpaid promotional event and turning down an appearance at an Asian American film festival. It was the latter refusal, Wu claims, that led to a screaming match in her trailer. With that, Wu writes, "Whatever it was we’d had was over."
The pair "didn't speak" for the rest of the show's run, but she claims the man got closer to others on set.
"He displayed a gentle warmth and camaraderie that he’d switch off whenever I came around, making sure I felt the contrast... He made sure I felt like an outcast on set," she alleges. "... It was a helpless feeling, knowing that it was too late for anything to change. Like I’d started out on the wrong foot, and too many steps had been taken since then to go back."
Wu claims that feeling led her to make "a feeble attempt" to tell "a couple of my costars and the activist father of one of the child actors" what had happened.
"In hindsight, I realize I put my colleagues in an unfair position... I was too chickensh*t to even make an official complaint," she writes. "... By the time the #MeToo movement came around, FOTB was already a few seasons in, and the show had been established as a positive milestone for Asian American representation. Did I really want to stain that? So I never went to HR, never reported it."
She also didn't say anything out of "self-preservation," knowing that she herself had displayed "childish behavior" with her co-stars, Randall Park and Chelsey Crisp, on separate occasions.
"And then there was my general newness to the TV industry. I didn’t understand the terrain of the business yet, so I was wobbly," Wu writes. "... I didn’t have friends or relatives at this level in the industry, I had no context for standard practices. And because I was an adult, I felt stupid and embarrassed asking questions that even my child costars seemed to know the answers to."
Given her alleged experiences, Wu writes that it "took time" for her to find her footing, something that became easier in "the final few seasons" when the man "was never on set."
"I never really spoke to [the man] again, but I eventually forgave him. And myself," she writes. "We were both in high-pressure situations without precedents -- it’s only natural to stumble along the way."
In her memoir, Wu also admits that she is "guilty of sexual harassment" on the FOTB set. Beginning in season 1, Wu writes, "Every time you saw my character writing on a legal pad, signing a check, or making a grocery list, I was writing the word 'penis' over and over again. I wasn’t discreet about it either; everyone knew."
The practice was one Wu implemented after "a juvenile, harmless joke" about the word "boob" appeared in a script for the series.
"I was, like, in a mood that day, so in my head I was like, Why is it okay for a woman’s body part to be a joke, but not a man’s?" she recalls. "... I decided that day that if 'boob' was okay to joke about, then 'penis' should be too."
While Wu thought she would "get away with it" because she "used the anatomical word and not slang," she admits that she "shouldn't have done it."
"I did it for three and a half seasons of Fresh Off the Boat until someone complained to Justin, one of the producers, that it was inappropriate," Wu writes. "Justin pulled me aside for a talk. He felt bad because he knew I thought it was harmless fun, but he had to tell me that it made someone uncomfortable."
"I think he expected me to protest, to defend myself... but I didn’t defend myself. I just said, 'I’m glad you told me, and you are right, I shouldn’t have done that. I will stop. I’m sorry,'" she continues. "I may have been joking, and sure, everyone laughed, but laughter is not an excuse. Sometimes people laugh when they’re uncomfortable... I apologize and recognize the problem. This is an earnest apology. From the bottom of my boob, I am sorry."
When ET spoke with the actress at the premiere of her latest film, Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, she opened up about her memoir.
"I write about a lot of different things and somebody just asking 'How are you?' or 'Are you OK?' is really important," she said. "I think a big theme... is how hard healing is, and how kids have big emotions, and you need to let them express it, and find a way to deal with it. That’s one of the overarching themes [of the book], which I think this movie is about as well."
Making a Scene is out now.
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