Constance Wu was admitted to the psychiatric unit after a Twitter controversy. The 40-year-old actress discusses the effects of her 2019 tweets that bemoaned the renewal of her ABC comedy, Fresh Off the Boat, for a sixth season in her new memoir, Making a Scene.
Since "the last episode of the season had been intended to operate as a series finale," Wu writes in her memoir, "the numbers pointed to cancellation" when season 5 came to a close. She also mentions that the original showrunner was scheduled to leave.
Wu states that in light of all of that, her team asked ABC whether she might work on other projects. Wu reports that although they made no commitments, they provided their approval for the action. "Cancellation was inevitable at this point."
Then, though, Wu's movie, Crazy Rich Asians, became a financial success.
"People began to speculate: Given how well-received CRA was, would the network really cancel FOTB? when the lack of Asian American representation in Hollywood was widely discussed?" She composes. But because statistics are statistics, I still believed the show would be cancelled.
Wu was therefore "surprised" to learn via Twitter that the show had been renewed for a sixth season.
She writes, "I'd have to forgo everything else — all the interesting tasks that the network had allowed us to explore — and return to FOTB because of my studio contract." "The new beginning I had hoped for would have to wait."
Wu experienced "overwhelming" emotions after the show's renewal, like "a tsunami crashing over my body," as a result of her turbulent time on the programme.
"In an effort to protect everything for everyone else, I had kept my head down and put up with the suffering for a very long time. Finally, I was unable to continue. I needed to express my emotions somewhere other than my overburdened body "Wu penman. "I didn't consider the context gap or give a damn about how ugly it was... I didn't give a damn about how I came across; I simply needed to speak for once. I let all of my pent-up emotions loose on social media."
And with that, she posted her contentious tweets criticising the decision to renew the show for another season.
"The reaction was swift. Unappreciative b**ch. She is really rude. Oh no, the unfortunate actress must return to her lucrative work!" Wu penman. "Then there was the usual schadenfreude that follows a significant social media incident. It was entertaining to watch someone who had always been so skilled suddenly lose control. I developed into a meme, a headline, and a platform for moral conviction. A girl making a scene who is unappreciative."
Wu "stood staring" at social media during the uproar but continued to get DMs via email. Such a statement from a former co-star made a significant impression.
"She warned me that nothing I would ever do would ever make up for my heinous actions and abhorrent lack of thanks. How I had tarnished the one bright light that Asian Americans possessed. How self-centered I was to not think about the employment of everyone else on the show, "Wu asserts. "She insisted that I bake cookies for [my co-star] Randall [Park] and the entire FOTB cast and crew and grovel at their feet, but she stated that even that wouldn't be enough to atone for what I had done. She explained to me how her nephew had loved the show and how I had destroyed it for him. I would never, ever be able to make up for how much I'd hurt him."
Wu claims that she felt "helpless and desperate, my heart full of stinging tacks" as a result of that DM.
"Why wouldn't she accept my apology? That I ached as much as she desired?" Wu ponders. "With my brain spinning, I knew I needed a wound to prove it, to prove that I hurt as much as everyone claimed I should hurt, and it couldn't be a minor wound, it had to be the worst wound in the world for it to be enough."
This is how she came to be clinging to the balcony railing of her fifth-floor apartment while wildly gazing down at the NYC street below with a reckless despair so complete that her body "ceased to be a body and became a sound so dangerously high-pitched it was like nails on a chalkboard or a violin string pulled tight enough to cut flesh." As I began dragging myself over the railing, the music "coursed through me and out of my fingertips like electricity."
However, she was saved by a friend who "pried me off the edge of the balcony and pulled me to the elevator and down into a cab, where she hastily contacted my publicist for assistance because she was afraid for my life, but equally afraid of doing the wrong thing."
She ended up in a mental hospital's psychiatric emergency room.
They even took away my hair elastics out of concern that I may injure myself with them, she recounts. "I felt dizzy, my puffy eyes obscured by tear-engorged contact lenses, my mouth pasty with unbrushed teeth, and my hair in shambles." "I slept that night on a cot in the deserted waiting area, watched over. I was sobbing until I was exhausted. I explained what had transpired to the two intake counsellors the following morning. that I nearly leaped. I'm quite impulsive, and I needed assistance."
And she did obtain aid.
She adds, "Fresh Off the Boat changed my life, but not how you might anticipate." "Sure, it helped me pay off my debt and establish my profession, but the difficult things were what truly improved my quality of life. I eventually sought assistance after the reaction on social media and hospital stay. I discovered a therapist who had experience treating famous actors and musicians and was sympathetic to my peculiar situation."
Wu apologised to her TV children for her tweets when she came back to the set to film season 6, and they accepted her apology with affection. She then read a letter of apology to the rest of the cast and staff of the programme, and they stood behind her. Wu considers Park, her co-leader, to be the support system she is "most fortunate" to have.
She claims that having him as her co-star for those turbulent six years was like winning the jackpot. "I will never be able to adequately explain how grateful I am to him for his kindness and patience. I regret that I wasn't as wonderful as he was, but I want to be and am confident that I am improving every day. He is my gold standard for what it is to be a good human being."
Regarding how she now perceives her tweet incident, she believes that rather than being a setback, "the entire experience might have been a beneficial filtering process," one that helped her identify the people who were truly there for her and weren't "swayed by false reports or social media numbers."
I'd fretted about what people thought of me for a significant portion of my public existence, she writes. "Letting that go at last felt liberating."
At the opening of her most recent movie, Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, the actress opened up to ET's Rachel Smith about the process of writing her memoir.
"I write about a lot of different things, and it's incredibly significant if someone just asks 'How are you?' or 'Are you OK?'," she remarked. "The difficulty of mending and the fact that children have strong feelings that must be allowed to be expressed in order to be dealt with are, in my opinion, major themes. One of the book's major themes is this, and I believe the same is true of the film."
