Actor Simu Liu revealed he’s finally made peace with his parents after dealing with severe childhood trauma.
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In a recent interview with Peoplethe Shang Chi star opened up about everything he endured while living with his parents in Canada and why he decided to forgive them.
Simu was raised in Harbin, China by his grandparents until he was four. He was then abruptly uprooted to Canada by his parents who decided to pursue their graduate studies abroad.
Simu said he “felt completely safe” with his grandparents, who’d often snuggle with him at night. But after reuniting with his dad de él, Zhenning, and mom, Zheng, Simu admitted, “It was very clear to me early on that [they] wouldn’t be able to provide that environment.”
As Simu got older, the cultural differences and expectations his parents placed on him of being perfect caused him to rebel in various ways, like attending late-night parties, forming a boy-band, and, of course, entertainment girls.
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And when his grades slipped to a B-average, things really started to go downhill. Simu remembered getting beatings and having screaming matches with his parents from him because he was n’t an A-student.
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“I remember thinking, ‘I’ve got the worst parents in the world.’ I felt so alone. Nobody could understand what I was enduring at home.”
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Simu said one of the times his parents were actually proud of him came when he graduated from Western University’s Ivey Business School in Ontario and landed a job at Deloitte.
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But as soon as Simu switched careers and ventured into acting, his relationship with his parents started to deteriorate. It wasn’t until he landed a starring role in CBC’s Kim’s Convenience in 2016, that they really started to reconnect.
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“We weren’t fighting, but at the same time, we hadn’t collectively chosen to dive back into our trauma and how we were all individually affected by it.”
The turning point finally came when Simu wrote his mother an eight-page letter on her 60th birthday — pouring out all the feelings he’d been holding in for years.
Simu’s mother was moved to tears by his letter, and they eventually had a much-needed heart-to-heart. “It was the first time we really talked about those issues. We both acknowledged that we were flawed human beings trying to do our best.”
Since then, Simu and Zheng have become the best of friends. He now ensures his parents of him are with him every step of the way by creating new memories every chance he gets.