'The Boys' star Karen Fukuhara says she was assaulted in a hate crime attack: 'Us women, Asians, the elderly need your help'
- Fukuhara said she was outside of a cafe on Wednesday when a man struck her in the back of the head.
- "It came out of nowhere. We made no eye contact before," she said in an Instagram post.
Karen Fukuhara says she was the victim of a hate crime attack outside of a cafe on Wednesday.
In a post on her Instagram account that went up on the same day, "The Boys" star wrote that she was "struck in the head by a man" but that she's "physically fine" after the attack.
"This shit needs to stop," she continued. "Us women, Asians, the elderly need your help."
"I was walking to a cafe for some coffee and a man struck me in the back of my head," Fukuhara continued in her social media post. "It came out of nowhere. We made no eye contact before, I wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary. It came to my surprise and my hat flew off. By the time I looked back, he was a few feet away from me (he must have kept walking after hitting me)."
Fukuhara did not disclose where this took place or indicate if she reported the incident to authorities. Insider contacted her representative for further comment but didn't get an immediate response.
"I thought about confronting him first but he started coming towards me and I didn't think it was worth the risk," Fukuhara wrote. "After a few seconds of staring at each other, and him yelling at me, he eventually walked away."
Fukuhara, who used the hashtag #StopAsianHate in the post, said that this was the first time she's been "harmed physically" though "racial slurs and hurtful actions have been directed to me in the past." The actress, who is also known for playing Katana in 2016's "Suicide Squad" and will next be seen in the Brad Pitt movie "Bullet Train," said this incident has made her think about taking self-defense classes.
"I write this, because I've had conversations with multi-racial friends of mine that had no idea these hate crimes happen to everyday, regular people — people that they share meals with," she wrote. "I felt it was important to raise awareness."
"What satisfaction are these perpetrators getting from hitting women, Asians, the elderly?" she continued. "They need to be held accountable. What can we do as a community to prevent these horrible crimes?"
Others actors in the AAPI community wrote on Fukuhara's post words of condolences. "I am so sorry this happened to you and glad you are ok," actor Jamie Chung wrote. "I know mentally this is going to take some time to heal."
Actor Olivia Munn commented, "I'm so grateful you're safe." Fukuhara's "The Boys" co-stars, including Jack Quaid and Chase Crawford, also commented on the post with their sympathies.
There has been a surge of Anti-Asian violence in the US in recent years, particularly since the start of the pandemic. Earlier this month, a New York City man was charged in connection to a hate-crime spree against Asian women, and the month prior, news of the fatal stabbing of Christina Yuna Lee, a 35-year-old creative director in New York, caused a public outcry.