Constance Wu doesn’t feed the trolls.
Like many people, the star of Crazy Rich Asians and Fresh Off The Boat has faced harassment from random, faceless people on the internet. But because Wu is a prominent Asian-American actress, the trolls Wu deals with are larger in number — and have a more specific goal.
At Vulture Fest in Los Angeles, Wu explained how some Asian men have targeted and harassed her online because one of her boyfriends was white.
“They make this assumption that every single one of my boyfriends has been white based on the one boyfriend they’ve seen on my social media, who is the boyfriend that I was dating when I first started my account, all the way up until after Fresh Off the Boat,” Wu said. “Unless they think I was a virgin before I was 30, then...yeah.”
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Wu doesn’t respond to the people she called “Asian incels,” mainly because she doesn’t feel a need to justify or defend her life choices.
“I am completely okay in my choices and why I make them — I’m very confident in that — so if somebody needs to target me in order to be part of longer journey about how they feel about themselves or their place in the world, I think that’s fine,” she said.
Wu also emphasized that she does make an effort to speak out about things she thinks are more productive, such as convincing Crazy Rich Asians director Jon Chu to eliminate a line from the movie in which her character, Rachel Chu, says she hadn’t dated Asian guys before.
“In the book she says, ‘Wow, I’ve never dated Asian guys before, but Nick is different,’” Wu said. “To say somebody is an exception to the rule is to reaffirm the rule.”
Wu has also previously spoken out against the Academy Awards rewarding sexual predators and the prevalence of the “white hero” complex in Hollywood movies.
Clearly, Wu isn’t afraid to use her voice — but incels just aren’t worth her time.