Constance Wu reveals in her new memoir that she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital after her suicide attempt in 2019.
“I was dizzy, my puffy eyes blurred from tear-swollen contact lenses, my mouth sticky from unbrushed teeth, my hair tousled because they even took my hair elastics for fear I would hurt myself with them,” said the 40-year-old actress. . , writes in “Making a Scene” about the moment she woke up in the psychiatric ward.
“I spent that night on a cot in the empty waiting room, under supervision. Crying until exhaustion exhausted me. The next morning I told the two intake counselors what had happened. That I almost jumped. That I am very impulsive… That I needed help.”
Wu tried to take her own life after she was criticized for tweeting that she was “so upset” and “literally crying” about the revival of her show “Fresh Off the Boat” in 2019.
The ABC sitcom — which starred Wu played matriarch Jessica Huang — ended its six-season run in February 2020.
She previously stated that she had a negative reaction to the series renewal because it meant giving up “another project that I was really passionate about”.
Wu claims in “Making a Scene” that a former female co-star scolded her over the social media outburst, leading to a deep state of emotional despair.
“So I came to the railing of my fifth-floor apartment and stared wildly at the New York street below with a reckless despair so total that my body ceased to be a body and became a sound so dangerously high that it it was like nails on a blackboard or a violin string pulled tight enough to cut meat,” she recalls.
“The sound flowed through me and out of my fingertips like electricity as I started pulling myself over the railing.”
Fortunately, a friend intervened to save Wu.
“[She] yanked me off the balcony edge and dragged me to the elevator and down into a taxi, where she breathlessly called my publicist for help because she feared for my life,” the actress tells “Crazy Rich Asians” the wrong thing.
Wu previously explained via Twitter that her book is “not always the most flattering representation” of herself. But it’s “as honest as I can be,” she noted.
‘Because the truth is, I’m not poised, graceful, or perfect. I am emotional. I make mistakes…a lot of them!” she wrote in July.
“After a short break from Hollywood and a lot of therapy, I feel good enough to continue here (at least for a little bit). And although I’m scared, I’ve decided that I owe it to the me-of-three years ago to be brave and share my story so it can help someone with theirs.”
“Making a Scene” is out now.
If you or someone you know is in emotional distress or contemplating suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).