Sanchita
Global icon Priyanka Chopra is riding high on the success of her recent Netflix release ‘The White Tiger’.
Making her mark in both Bollywood and Hollywood, Priyanka, who’s married to Nick Jonas, has comfortably shifted base to the United States.
While she’s settled in quite nicely now, there was a time in high school when the place was pretty tough on her – racist bullying and what not. In an interview with Marie Claire, Priyanka recalled her experience with racism as a teenager in Newton North High School, Massachusetts.
Chopra revealed that she still doesn’t understand what made her the target of her high school bully Jenny (a pseudonym).
“In high school, I feel like the kids who were after me didn’t even understand why. I think it’s that they decided that they were more powerful than someone else—me—and when you pick on someone, it’s because you’re insecure,” she said. “Bullying happens to kids and adults. It happens with positions of power, and we’ve all seen that abused in multiple ways.”
While decades later, she has come to terms with it, Priyanka admitted that the bullying took a toll on her in high school, “It affected me adversely. It affected my confidence; it affected who I wanted to be. I felt exposed, when your skin is raw.”
She further added how her father helped her develop a thick skin – “Adapting was something I learned very early on because my parents moved so much. Every two years, we were in a different city (Her parents, Ashok and Madhu, were both doctors in the Indian army.) “He would say to me, ‘You know, if your teacher doesn’t like you in this school, the next one you go to, no one will ever know.’ He made it fun and made me fearless about trying new things.”
Getting honest and vulnerable, Priyanka also talked about her memoir Unfinished, saying that’s where the ‘real her’ is on display. “I call it the in-between-interviews book. I’ve been in so many interviews in my life, but nobody knows what happened in between them. I’m not someone who shares my vulnerabilities, my fears. And somehow in the process of writing this book—because it was so cathartic—I happened to go to those places.”
Unfinished marks Priyanka’s debut as an author and will release on February 9, 2021. On the work front, Chopra is working on the Amazon Studios series Citadel, produced by Avengers: Endgame directors Anthony and Joe Russo. She has wrapped up filming the rom-com Text For You. The actor will also be seen in the sci-fi film The Matrix 4.
