After Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, Bollywood and Hollywood actress-singer Priyanka Chopra Jonas appeared on an interview hosted by Oprah Winfrey. The episode of Super Soul featuring PeeCee was released today and oh boy, it is undoubtedly Priyanka's no-holds-barred interview with Oprah Winfrey.
From dealing with insecurities as an adolescent to how her parents influenced her sense of independence, the actor opened up about it all during the chat, and also touched upon life as Miss World, facing harassment in the entertainment industry, and her fairytale love story with Nick Jonas. Before you catch the interview, here are 10 of the biggest reveals from the much-anticipated one-on-one.
Why she feels the strong urge to help fellow women
“There are so many women in the world that don't have a choice in their own existence. It's decided when they have kids, who they marry, what jobs they do—if they have jobs, whether they go to school."
On trying to keep her 'head above water' after her 2000 Miss World win
“I was thrown into the deep, and so badly. I didn't come from a pageant family. I didn't come from desiring that. I never thought I could be part of it. At 17, when you're thrown into this crazy world of pageants internationally and movies, I was just trying to keep my head above water at that point."
Her most memorable part of her dreamy three-day wedding to Nick Jonas
“My mom walking me down the aisle was a really big moment. I extended my hand for my mom to come, and I felt my dad's presence in such a big way in that moment."
She believes that her mom “dreamed up" Nick Jonas
“Nothing surprised me more than him. He's such a self-assured man. So sensible. So excited about my achievements. My dreams. [It's] such a true partnership that he offers me in everything that we do together. I truly believe that my mom manifested him."
On The White Tiger:
“I had read the book in 2008. I actually read that it was being adapted for Netflix on Twitter. And I told my agent to call and offer my services as an executive producer. Because when I was seeking work in America five or six years ago, I just thought that it was not really in the consciousness of the filmmakers that a leading mainstream part could be played by a brown person. And I didn’t want the movie to be [slotted as] an ‘independent’ movie or put into a genre box, which ends up happening when you see the leading cast is all Indian. So I really wanted to EP it and get as many eyeballs as I can to the movie, because the story is universal and the narrative is about a class divide, which exists everywhere in the world right now.”
What She Misses About Her Father:
“I miss … just how unabashedly proud of me he would be, in the littlest things. If I was having dinner and my plate was clean, my dad would be excited. If I wore a dress I liked, my dad would be excited. If I won an award… The littlest thing or the biggest thing, he’d be the loudest in the room. I miss the noise, the excitement he had, the joy, and the investment he had in my life. But I do feel he’s been very instrumental in me being where I am today; I think he’s gone up there and made a few things happen. He’s helped me find a sense of peace, which I never had when he was around. He always saw me as this restless, trying-to-get-to-the-new-place thing, and he always wanted me to have a sense of peace. And that’s when I feel him around: when I feel peaceful.”
Racist Bullying in High School in the US:
“High school is hard anyway. And to be coming of age, to understand your body as a woman; at the same time, to be devalued for something I can’t change! I wasn’t even aware of the fact that this was something I should feel embarrassed about. Did my clothes smell funny when I walked by in the hallway? Did people smell curry? Little things like that, at sixteen, are so detrimental to your self-worth, your sense of self. In retrospect, now I think that they probably didn’t even know what they were doing, it was just trying to hurt somebody they wanted to target. But at that time, at sixteen, I remember, I was like, ‘I don’t wanna live in this country, I wanna go home, I want my mommy.’ I called my mom and she was on the next flight over and we went back home. But at that time, I remember feeling profoundly affected by it.”
On Quitting a Film When Asked to Perform an Uncomfortable Scene:
“My mom told me when I was nine years old, ‘Whatever you do in life, you will be financially independent.’ Who says that to a nine-year-old kid? But that was what my parents were, you know. I was told to have an opinion in a room that disagreed with me. My dad said, ‘If you don’t have an opinion, what’s the point of you being here?’ I was always encouraged to have a voice. My regret with that incident [walking out of the film] is that I never said anything to the filmmaker. I was so scared. I was new in the entertainment business, and girls are always told, ‘You don’t want to get a reputation of being hard to work with.’ So I worked within the system. And that’s my regret, you know: I never stood up to him and said, ‘What you did was wrong,’ because I was scared. But the only way I knew how to deal with it was to step away from it and have grace under fire. And that’s what I did.”
On her first single In My City getting racist comments
“That was really shocking to me. I didn’t see that coming. I was blindsided by that. I was so excited about this first song, I’m working with will.i.am! I was so proud, because I was stepping into American pop culture and I really wanted to be part of mainstream American pop culture. And this was like – what bigger than Thursday night football? And then to hear… I was actually quiet for a couple of days because of a sense of shock that it was so vile, so racist and so public. This was all on social media, it was out there. People were discussing it, people were commenting, people were saying, ‘Yay, great!’ It threw me for a spin a little bit. But it also, once I found my feet, and the NFL stood by me, fed me to normalise people who look like me in mainstream entertainment. Why was this such a big deal? It shouldn’t have been. I’m just a girl singing a song.”
A Sense of Herself:
“From a very young age, I was thrown into different atmospheres: moving schools, going to a different country at twelve years old, being thrown into pageants, being thrown into movies. In the beginning, I used to have to remind myself why I’m in the room. Why am I meeting heads of states? And why am I meeting these really important people? To be able to sit across from someone who has a long list of achievements and still feel like I belong.”