Karen Fukuhara Says She Was Attacked in Racially-Driven ‘Hate Crime’

The actress, best known to modern audiences for her starring roles in the original 2016 “Suicide Squad” and Amazon’s “The Boys,” opened up about the experience in what she described as a rare look into her private life.

“I rarely share about my private life,” she wrote as part of a slideshow message. “But something happened today that I thought was important.”

That something was an alleged assault on Fukuhara by a random passerby when she was walking on the street toward a cafe for a simple cup of coffee. “It came out of nowhere,” she said of the attack. According to Fukuhara, a man struck her in the back of the head as he walked by.

“We made no eye contact before,” she added. “I wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary.”

The alleged attack wasn’t an accident, either, as Fukuahara said that by the time she turned around to look back, he was a few feet beyond her, indicating it was a moving attack. But he was also apparently looking at her.

“After a few seconds of staring at each other and him yelling at me, he eventually walked away,” Fukuhara said. She also said that she did not confront him about the incident because “he started walking toward” her again, and she feared what else he might do.

Fukuhara said that she is unfortunately stranger to “racial slurs” and “hurtful actions,” but this was the first time she’d been physically harmed. She is fine, but she felt it was important to share this experience publicly.

“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,” she wrote. And so, she shared this story in an effort to raise awareness.

As she found herself considering taking self defense classes to be better prepared for any future attacks, Fukuhara grew frustrated that it’s the “victims” who have to prepare for the potential ugliness of this world.

“Why is this something we as ‘victims’ have to think about?” she asked. “What satisfaction are these perpetrators getting from hitting women, Asians, the ELDERLY?”

“They need to be held accountable,” she noted. She then concluded her message with a call to action, even as it’s hard to say what that action should do. Her question that should not be rhetorical: “What can we do as a community to prevent these horrible crimes?”

Fukuhara captioned her post with the hashtag “#stopasianhate.” She quickly saw support from other celebrities and fans with Olivia Munn commenting, “I’m so grateful you’re safe.” Chace Crawford didn’t hold back, writing, “F this person!! Hope you’re ok this is awful.”

Attacks on people of Asian descent saw a dramatic increase in the United Statesafter the Covid outbreak two years ago, fueled in large part by the false narrative that the disease was at best the fault of the Chinese and at worst a manufactured disease in a Chinese lab.

According to NBC News, the increase in anti-Asian hate crimes was a staggering 339 percent in 2021, amid an overall increase of 11 percent.

A report from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism notes that many cities, including Los Angels and New York, saw the number of these crimes increase from 2020 figures. Los Angeles “recorded the most hate crimes of any U.S. city this century” in 2021, per the report, with New York not far behind.