Constance Wu reveals she was ‘going to jump’ off her balcony after Fresh Off the Boat backlash

Constance Wu broke down in tears as she recalled the harrowing moment she nearly threw herself over her apartment balcony after facing a furious ‘pile-on’ of backlash over her controversial Fresh Off the Boat tweets in 2019. 

Speaking to Good Morning America in an emotional sit-down, the 40-year-old actress spoke out about the night that she ‘pulled herself over the balcony of her apartment’ and ‘was going to jump’, having been driven to the brink of suicide by the relentless hatred she came up against on social media.  

‘I pulled myself over the balcony of my apartment building and I was going to jump,’ she tearfully revealed. ‘It’s like talking about it now, it makes my palms itch because I remember holding on to it.’ 

Wu came under severe scrutiny after she shared her upset over the surprise renewal of the ABC comedy Fresh Off the Boat three years ago. 

Constance Wu broke down in tears during an emotional Good Morning America interview on Tuesday, during which she opened up about the night she nearly killed herself 

Wu, 40, was driven to the brink of suicide after facing fury for tweeting her upset over the surprise renewal of ABC comedy Fresh Off the Boat in 2019

At the time, Wu tweeted her anger over the show’s renewal – sparking a bitter backlash from fans, who branded her ‘ungrateful’ 

At the time, Wu – who starred as Asian American mother Jessica Huang in the series – stated in a series of profanity-filled tweets that she was ‘so upset’ that it was coming back for another season, sparking fury from fans who branded her as ‘ungrateful’ and ‘spoiled.’ 

She later explained that her frustration over the show’s renewal was due to the fact that she’d had to give up another project in order to film the sixth season of Fresh Off the Boat – admitting in one interview with the Los Angeles Times that she has a penchant for the ‘dramatic’. 

Wu opened up about her suicide attempt in her new book, Making a Scene, in which she also reveals she was sexually harassed by a producer on the hit ABC comedy

Still, her explanation did little to quell the storm of fury targeted at her.  

Now, the actress, who went on to achieve worldwide fame after starring in the movie Crazy Rich Asians, has revealed that the hatred she faced drove her to the brink of suicide.

‘There was a huge pile-on, I was essentially canceled for coming off as ungrateful,’ she recalled on GMA. 

‘And the most painful thing of all was it was really the Asian American community that either ostracized or avoided me the most.

‘I was canceled for being less than perfect. For not being the Asian that people wanted me to be.

‘Ungrateful, bratty, whatever. Do I think the proportion of the hatred and cancelation pitted at me was equal to the amount of error I did? No. But whatever. 

‘I’m thinking about how I can be a better person and it’s made me try to be a better person.’

Wu previously revealed in a message posted to her Twitter that an unnamed actress had sent her a direct message telling her she was a ‘blight on the Asian American community’ – and that pushed her to the brink.

The actress told GMA that she stayed silent about the harassment for years because she didn’t ‘want to ‘stain the reputation of the one show Asian Americans had to represent themselves’

Wu was subjected to backlash in 2019 after posting several strongly-worded tweets about Fresh Off The Boat being renewed for a sixth season

She later explained that her upset over the renewal was due to the fact that she’d had to pull out of another project as a result of Fresh Off the Boat continuing for another season 

Luckily, Wu was found by a friend after her suicide attempt and was rushed to the emergency room. 

Although traumatic, the star added that the harrowing incident was ‘ultimately’ something that was positive because it forced her to get professional help.

‘Ultimately it ended up being something helpful because it made me get help,’ she continued.

‘I was in therapy every day for a while. It took me a while to get on the right medication. It took me completely unplugging from social media.’

The actress told GMA that she learned she had been battling clinical depression while filming Crazy Rich Asians in 2018 – admitting that she ‘couldn’t even get off the couch’ for months after she wrapped the movie.  

Wu first revealed to the world that she had been pushed to attempt suicide earlier this year, when she returned to social media and issued a statement about her near-three-year break from her accounts. 

‘Hi everybody. I haven’t been on social media in almost 3 years. Tbh, I’m a little scared, but I’m dipping my toe back in to say I’m here and while I was gone I wrote a book called Making a Scene,’ she wrote in the July post. 

‘This next part is hard to talk about… but I was afraid of coming back on social media because I almost lost my life from it: 3 years ago, when I made careless tweets about the renewal of my TV show, it ignited outrage and internet shaming that got pretty severe.

Wu says she later learned that she was battling clinical depression while she was filming Crazy Rich Asians (seen) in 2018 and ‘couldn’t get off the couch’ for months after the movie wrapped

The actress first revealed that she had attempted suicide back in July, when she returned to social media after a near-three-year break 

‘I felt awful about what I’d said, and when a few DMs from a fellow Asian actress told me I’d become a blight on the Asian American community, I started feeling like I didn’t even deserve to live anymore. 

‘That I was a disgrace to [Asian Americans], and they’d be better off without me. Looking back, it’s surreal that a few DMs convinced me to end my own life, but that’s what happened. Luckily, a friend found me and rushed me to the ER.’ 

Speaking to GMA, Wu also opened up about the sexual harassment that she says she faced at the hands of an Asian American producer on Fresh Off the Boat, explaining that she stayed silent about the abuse for so long because she didn’t want to ‘stain the reputation of the one show Asian Americans had to represent themselves’.

‘My first couple of years on Fresh Off the Boat I was sexually harassed by a producer and I was intimated and threatened a lot by him,’ she explained – revealing to GMA that the harassment included the producer asking for ‘revealing selfies’ and an ‘incident of unwanted touching’.  

‘I was scared of losing my job,’ she continued. ‘But [I] also [kept quiet] because – and this is pre-MeToo movement – compared to other stories, the harassment I endured… it wasn’t “that bad”.

‘My abuser on the show was an Asian American man, a producer, and it really was a conflict for me because I didn’t want to stain the reputation of the one show Asian Americans had to represent themselves. I shut up because the producer was such a good proponent for Asian American issues that I didn’t want to bring him down.’

Even now, though she says she feels as though she is ‘finally getting to be heard and tell her story’, Wu admits that she is ‘afraid’ of any backlash she might face for speaking out. 

‘Am I afraid of backlash? Of course. There’s not much to be gained when survivors tell their stories,’ she said.