Karen Fukuhara, best known for playing Kimiko Miyashiro in the Prime Video comic series The Boys and Katana in David Ayer’s Suicide Squad, revealed on Instagram that she was attacked outside a coffee shop on Wednesday. The actor did not reveal the location of the incident, but wrote that the attack was “the first time I’ve ever been physically harmed.”
“Today I was hit on the head by a man,” she wrote, noting that she was “physically fine” after the attack. “This shit needs to stop. We women, Asians and the elderly need your help.”
“I rarely talk about my personal life, but something happened today that I consider important,” continued Fukuhara. “I was walking to a coffee shop for coffee and a man hit me on the back of the head. It appeared out of nowhere. We had never made eye contact before, I hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary. To my surprise, my hat came off. By the time I looked back, he was a few feet away from me (he must have kept walking after hitting me).”
Fukuhara, who used the hashtag “Stop hating Asians” to accompany her post, said she thought about “confronting” her attacker but realized it was “not worth the risk.” The actor added, “After staring at each other for a few seconds and yelling at me, he eventually left.”
“I am writing this because I had conversations with my multiracial friends who had no idea that these hate crimes were happening to ordinary people — the people they eat with,” she wrote. “I felt it was important to raise awareness.”
She mentioned that she is now thinking about taking self-defense courses after the “shock” attack. She expressed relief that the attacker did not carry a lethal weapon.
“Why do we ‘victims’ have to think about it?” Fukuhara asked. “What pleasure do these criminals get from beating women, Asians, old people? They need to be held accountable. What can we do as a community to prevent these heinous crimes?”
Her Boys co-stars rallied around her in the comments section of her post. Chace Crawford wrote: “F this man!! I hope you’re ok, it’s terrible.”
Jack Quaid added: “Karen, thanks for sharing your experience. I’m sorry this happened to you. Love you. Here if you need anything. Las Alonso shared: “It infuriates me. I wish I could be there…”
Variety has reached out to Fukuhara’s rep for additional comment.
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