Actor Katie Leung, who played Cho Chang in the Harry Potter franchise, has claimed that she was subjected to racist attacks from fans online while she was shooting for the fantasy series. She also said publicists told her to deny what was happening if she were ever asked.
Leung made these revelations on a recent episode of the podcast "Chinese Chippy Girl". The actor said that after she was cast in 2005's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, she started seeing racist messages online.
“I was Googling myself at one point, and I was on this website, which was kind of dedicated to the Harry Potter fandom. I remember reading all the comments. And, yeah, it was a lot of racist s**t,” she said in the podcast.
Leung, who is of Chinese descent, was born in Scotland. She said that she was only 16 when she was cast in the Harry Potter films and had no media training before doing interviews. She recalled about her publicists asking her to deny that the racist attacks were happening.
“I remember them saying to me, ‘Oh, look Katie, we haven’t seen these, these websites that people are talking about. And you know, if you get asked that, just say it’s not true. Say it’s not happening,’” she said. “And I just nodded my head. I was like, ‘Okay, okay,’ even though I had seen it myself with my own eyes. I was like, ‘Okay, yeah, I’ll just say everything’s great.'”
Warner Bros Pictures hasn't issued a statement about this yet.
Leung said that she was grateful to have been given the opportunity but she wished she could have said something. "But you can't do that".
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