Even during his bachelor party in Ontario’s Muskoka region, Simu Liu had Markham on his mind.

Ahead of his wedding to fiancée Allison Hsu, the Marvel star stepped away from jet skiing and lake swims with friends this week to talk about bringing ARC World — the annual Asian Roots Collective festival — back to the Toronto suburb where it began.

The celebration of Asian culture — featuring food, music, speakers and a celebrity basketball game with Liu and former NBA star Jeremy Lin — returns Sept. 12 after recent editions in downtown Toronto.

“It’s such a big part of the Asian Canadian community,” Liu says of Markham.

“First of all, it’s got the best Chinese food in the country, in my opinion.”

Speaking over the phone while overlooking a Muskoka lake, Liu says coming to Markham is meaningful because it’s where the non-profit behind ARC World was born.

“We wanted to bring the event back to the community and back to its people, maybe avoid the traffic of downtown a little bit.”

Originally named the Chinese Canadian Youth Athletic Association, the Asian Roots Collective was founded in 1995 to provide basketball programming for Chinese Canadians. Today, it operates its own athletics centre in Markham and serves the broader Asian community.

The organization partnered with Liu in 2019 on a celebrity basketball game that raised money for the foundation led by Lin, then a member of the Toronto Raptors. The event has since evolved into a one-day festival celebrating Asian excellence across industries, bringing together athletes, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs and chefs alongside local businesses and community organizations.

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Liu says the larger goal is exposing young Asian Canadians to role models they might not otherwise encounter.

“An event like this is necessary today because I think you still have kids that grow up a little bit unsure of how to feel about their identity,” says Liu, who starred in 2021’s “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” and will appear in this winter’s “Avengers: Doomsday.”

He says that’s especially important at a time when progress on representation can feel uncertain and “public opinion shifts as to whether or not support for marginalized communities is important.”

“There’s a lot of rhetoric that comes south of the border that unfortunately, because we’re so close by proximity, permeates into our discourse,” says Liu.

“It’s really important in those moments to just stand ten toes down and really support what you’re passionate about. And for me, I’m never not going to be Chinese, so this community is always going to mean a lot to me.”

Lin says a recent backlash towards diversity and inclusion efforts “is telling of the barriers we’re up against and why we need to continue to do this year in and year out.”

The Asian American guard says he keeps returning to Toronto for ARC World because the city’s Asian community has always supported him.

“I always say Toronto is easily one of my favourite cities, and one of the favourite teams that I’ve ever played for, primarily because of the fans,” he says on a virtual call from the Bay Area.

“Even when I was playing for the Knicks, it felt like (Toronto fans) were cheering for me and it felt like a home game,” adds Lin, who runs a basketball school in Toronto with ARC.

“All through my career, when I went back to Toronto, I always received so much love.”

Lin and Liu struck up a friendship during Lin’s time with the Raptors, and though they don’t see each other as often these days, Lin says they have remained close over the years.

“Our mutual respect, our love for each other, our friendship is understood. And every time we see each other, we just pick up where we left off.”

Right on cue, ARC co-founder Clement Chu, calling in from Liu’s bachelor party in Muskoka, swivels the camera to the actor and his friends, who flash peace signs from the cottage.

“I’m midway through glazing you, bro!” Lin tells Liu, chuckling.

Liu says he wants to expand young people’s sense of what’s possible.

Growing up in the Greater Toronto Area, he didn’t see many people who looked like him succeeding outside a handful of “predetermined paths.”

“We knew some of our friends got sent to Kumon or that all our parents wanted us to be doctors,” he says.

“If I could’ve attended an event where so many of my favourite actors or athletes or creators or entrepreneurs were there, and I had the opportunity to absorb advice and wisdom from them, I just feel like my perception of what was possible — my entire worldview — would’ve been very different.”

Chu says celebrities attending this year’s ARC World will soon be announced.

But for now, it’s back to the stag festivities.

“We’re hitting the hot tub right now,” says Liu.

“We’re probably going to jump in the lake and then play some board games.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 31, 2026.

Jared Leto has been accused of criminal sexual conduct by four women, who allege he was behaving inappropriately when they were teens.

In a new BBC documentary, titled Jared Leto: Hollywood’s Dark Secret, 10 women came forward with allegations against the Thirty Seconds to Mars singer.

One of the women claimed that she was sexually assaulted in a motel bathroom when she was 17, according to the BBC.

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Another claimed that the Suicide Squad actor threatened her with sexual assault when she was 19 and was left alone with him in a hotel room.

A third woman alleged that she had underage sex with the actor in California when she was 17, according to the outlet.

The fourth woman alleged that she was groomed by Leto, saying he abused his celebrity status by making repeated sexually explicit phone calls to her when she was 16 and suggested that they should have sex.

The woman claims that she was sent a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to prevent her from speaking about her relationship with Leto but she refused to sign the document.

Four other women accuse Leto of making “strange and often very sexual” phone calls when they were younger.

Nine of the women in the documentary are speaking publicly about their allegations for the first time said their encounters with Leto took place between 2022 and 2016, when the singer, who is now 54, was in his 30s and 40s.

“This was 25 years ago.… He has gotten away with it,” one woman said.

In a statement given to The Hollywood Reporter via his team on Wednesday, Leto said: “I have never sexually assaulted anyone in my entire life. These claims are absolutely and categorically false.”

Global News has reached out to Leto’s representative for comment, but has not received a response and has not independently confirmed the allegations in the BBC’s documentary.

Leto also did not respond to “repeated attempts” by the BBC to contact him, the outlet reports.

Two men who worked with Leto’s band for many years told the BBC that staff felt uncomfortable about the way Leto would allegedly interact with teenage girls by inviting them backstage to his dressing room or inviting them to his house when he was recording, according to the report.

“I think everyone thought the age gap was way too big,” one of the men said.

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There have been a number of allegations against Leto reported over the last few years.

Last June, Leto denied allegations of sexual misconduct after multiple women came forward and accused the 54-year-old actor and singer of behaving inappropriately toward them, with some claiming they were underage.

In a report published by digital weekly Air Mail, nine women alleged that the Tron: Ares actor behaved inappropriately toward them and has a long-standing pattern of sexual misconduct.

A representative for Leto told the outlet that “all of the allegations are expressly denied.”

The rep also denied an earlier allegation from Allie Teilz, a DJ who claimed in an Instagram story posted in May 2025 that she was “assaulted and traumatized” by Leto. His rep said that “Ms. Teilz’s allegations are demonstrably false.”

Teilz said she was 17 years old when she had her interaction with Leto. She reposted a 2012 Facebook status update on Instagram last month, writing, “Youre [sic] not really in L.A. until Jared Leto tries to force himself on you backstage … In a kilt.. And a snow hat.”

In a followup post, Teilz wrote, “I was assaulted and traumatized by that creep when I was 17. He knew my age and didn’t care. What he did was predatory, terrifying and unacceptable.”

Among the allegations in the article from Air Mail, Leto was accused of walking out of a room naked in front of a 17-year-old girl and exposing himself and masturbating before putting an 18-year-old’s hand “on him.” He is also accused of asking sexual questions to a 16-year-old girl.

“It’s been an open secret for a long time,” an anonymous woman told Air Mail.

Another accuser, model Laura La Rue, reportedly said she met Leto at an animal rights benefit in 2008 in Beverly Hills, Calif. She said she attended the event with her mom and she told Leto that she was 16 and alleged he still asked for her number.

La Rue said in that report that she began exchanging emails with Leto and visited him at his music studio several times. She also said that when she visited Leto’s home in April 2009, she remembers him “teasing me the whole time I was there.”

“He was flirting with me. He’d lean in close, then pull away, like it was a game,” La Rue told the outlet.

That report also cited her as saying that when she was 17, Leto walked out of a room completely naked and she “thought maybe this was just what adult men do.”

In response to La Rue’s allegations, Leto’s rep told Air Mail that “their communications contain nothing sexual or inappropriate.”

The rep also claimed that La Rue had “applied to work as Mr. Leto’s personal assistant, further underscoring the absence of anything inappropriate in any of their interactions.”

La Rue has denied applying for the position.