[7] He is a former member of South Korean-Chinese boy band Exo and its subgroup Exo-M under SM Entertainment, before leaving the group in 2014.

During high school, he held a job as a server at an Asian karaoke parlour, in part to relieve his mother's financial pressure.

[19] In a later interview, Wu cited his increasingly tense relationship with his mother and the financial pressure of college tuition as the main reasons he chose to go to South Korea.

[20] In April 2012, Exo made their debut and quickly became one of the most popular K-pop groups in South Korea and internationally, achieving commercial success with their studio album XOXO and their hit song "Growl" in 2013.

[30] The same year, Wu starred alongside Liu Yifei in So Young 2: Never Gone[31] and romance melodrama Sweet Sixteen.

[34] Wu also starred in the blockbuster fantasy film L.O.R.D: Legend of Ravaging Dynasties, directed and written by Guo Jingming.

[41] Wu then starred in Stephen Chow's film, Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back, playing Tang Sanzang.

[45] In July 2017, Wu appeared in Luc Besson's science fiction film Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.

[48] Wu starred in the 2018 Hong Kong-made action thriller Europe Raiders, alongside Tony Leung.

[49] As of April 2018, future music from Wu will be released internationally, excluding Japan and Korea, through a partnership of Universal Music China, Interscope in the United States and Island Records in the United Kingdom[50] Wu's debut album Antares featuring the 2018 singles "Like That" and "Freedom" (featuring Jhené Aiko) was released on November 2, 2018.

[51] On April 19, 2019, Wu released a single, "Big Bowl, Thick Noodle", the music video for which was viewed over 90 million times on streaming site Miaopai.

[53] On November 6, 2019, his 29th birthday, Wu released a second single, "Eternal Love", along with an accompanying micro film starring himself and Japanese model Kōki.

[55][56] In 2013, Wu was rumored to be in a relationship with Iris aka Lin Xiya, former member of Baby Vox, with intimate bed photos of them being leaked.

In 2021, after Wu was arrested for rape, Lin spoke about the incident from seven years ago on Weibo, saying that the photos were stolen and not self-published.

[60] On August 6, 2021, Chinese-American lawyer Jing Wang in Orange County, California claimed that Wu had raped an underage fan following the "bride-show" in Los Angeles.

[67] Burberry chose Wu as their global ambassador in 2016, making him the first non-British as well as the first Asian person to be the face of the brand.

[70][71] In June 2014, Wu joined Heart Ali, a project started by Fan Bingbing and Chen Lizhi (the general manager of Beijing Maite Media).

The charity project is aimed at helping children suffering from congenital heart defects in Ngari Prefecture in Tibet.

The goal is to spread basketball in middle schools in China to encourage all basketball-loving youth to continue their dreams of pursuing this sport.

[80] On July 8, 2021, Du Meizhu, a 19-year-old Chinese college student, posted allegations online accusing Wu of a pattern of sexual assault involving multiple women and girls, some underage, while they were unconscious or under the influence of alcohol.

Through Weibo, Du stated she was raped while intoxicated on December 5, 2020, at age 18, and that she was speaking for at least seven other victims, two of whom were minors at the time of the crime.