“The Terminal List” star Constance Wu said a few years ago the “realization hit” her “like a flood” that she was allegedly sexually assaulted early in her career by an “aspiring novelist.”
In an excerpt from the 40-year-old actress’ new memoir “Making a Scene,” Wu talked about dating a novelist named “Ty” and wrote that on their second date, she didn’t “consent to sex. Maybe it wasn’t violent, but it was rape,” Vanity Fair reported.
“For our second date, we had dinner at a restaurant near his place, and after dinner, he said he had a gift for me,” the actress wrote. “Could I come upstairs so he could give it to me? I felt a twinge of warning in my gut, but I ignored it—he didn’t look threatening or shady in any way, and if you had been there, you would have agreed.”
“Plus, I didn’t want to insult his friendly invitation by making him think I perceived a threat,” she added. “So, I went upstairs. It’s okay; he did have an actual gift. It was in a box about the size of a throw pillow, beautifully wrapped in brown paper and a red silk ribbon. He asked me not to open it until I got home. It was a sweet gesture, and I kissed him to say thanks.”
The “Crazy Rich Asians” star said the kissing led to the two getting more intimate and “fooling around.” When she asked for things to stop, Ty wasn’t interested, according to Wu. She wrote that despite her sharing repeatedly that she wasn’t “ready to have sex with” him, the novelist continued and “did it anyway.”
In the end, Wu wrote that she “didn’t fight back” and that she “just . . . gave up.”
In a powerful excerpt from her memoir, Constance Wu recalls the sexual assault she endured in her 20s—and wonders why it took her so long to recognize it for what it was. https://t.co/Jnbf4BDoeV
— VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) September 26, 2022
At the end of the excerpt, she wrote that some people might say she should’ve fought back against him, but she disagreed.
“But if I could go back in time, I wouldn’t change how I reacted that night,” Wu explained. “Because when I think about the girl I was back then, I understand what she was going through.”
“She wasn’t yet ready to bear the insults and derision that follow when women make scenes,” she added. “And I wouldn’t make her do something before she was ready.”
“Making a Scene” is due out October 4.