Arden Cho revealed she was the target of a verbal assault while she was walking her dog at night on Wednesday, March 31.
The Teen Wolf actress, 35, shared details of the frightening encounter on Instagram on Thursday, April 1. Arden said a man, who was just a couple feet away from her, "screamed" that he was "going to motherf--king kill" her and her "f--king dog" and also used a racist slur.
"This along with other obscenities were screamed at me when I was outside walking with my dog last night," she wrote. "I haven't been this scared in years, he was a couple feet away & started coming towards me. I grabbed Chewy and ran as fast as I could."
Arden said she had stopped crying by the time she posted the message, but was still "scared" and "shaking" after the attack.
"I used to run at night, I haven't ran in months," she explained. "I still have to walk my dog, so I carry a knife when we go out at night. I know how to fight but I still don't feel safe. I'm young & fit, I shouldn't be scared but I am."
In her caption, she pled for her followers to help and stand up against hate. "Please, please #StopAsianHate I can't breathe," she said. "My mom called me & I couldn't help but start crying again. She's so scared to walk outside, even in the day time. I'm sorry mom. She wants me to be strong. So I'll try. Please help us." She added on her Story, "We belong here."
The Chicago Med alum also feels that "all my trauma as a kid" has been coming back to her lately, amid the recent rise in violence against the Asian American community.
She reflected on one particularly traumatic event from her childhood. As Arden recalled, "I've been kicked in the face till I was unconscious and hospitalized... I didn't realize how much that incident shaped my life. How much fear I've always lived with."
On Twitter, she described the attack in more detail, saying it occurred in a neighborhood cul-de-sac at the start of summer break when she was 10.
"Out of nowhere a teenage boy kicked my front wheel and I fell to the ground, he then proceeded to yell at me and kick me in the face," wrote the actress, who grew up in Texas. "My two front teeth were knocked out, my bottom tooth chipped, my whole face was bloodied and scraped, my arms and legs were all cut."
Arden said she thought she died, writing, "I was unconscious for a while, when I came to, my mom was crying and my head was in her lap. Our neighbor was driving us to the hospital." Her eyes were swollen shut and "everything burned," she remembered.
"I thought I was dead and dreaming," she continued. "Back then, we didn't fight. We didn't sue him. We didn't get justice. The police said he had anger issues, they said he had forgotten to take his meds. He was about 14."
Even now, Arden acknowledges that incident and a few others "shaped how I lived my life." She tweeted, "I grew up thinking experiences like that were normal."
The "Simply" singer went on, "I've always been scared. I had nightmares my entire life, I barely sleep. I honestly didn't realize I was living with all this trauma, I thought I was okay. But seeing countless videos of violent attacks has triggered a lot of these memories and it's been so heavy and painful."
In March, NBC News reported that anti-Asian hate crimes were up by almost 150 percent in 2020, with approximately 3,800 racist incidents documented in the past year, according to another report.
After eight people were killed at Atlanta area spas last month (including six women of Asian descent), several more stars spoke out on social media to back the #StopAsianHate movement, including LeBron James and Florence Pugh.
More celebrities have come forward to share their own personal experiences with fear, microaggressions, bullying and more. Read the powerful messages from Riverdale's Charles Melton, To All the Boys' Lana Condor and Emily in Paris' Ashley Park.