New Delhi: 

Priyanka Chopra has been making headlines for her powerful revelations on the latest episode of the Armchair Expert podcast. In a detailed chat with actor-filmmaker Dax Shepard, the actress shared details about her life, career, and choices – both personal and professional. While speaking about her early career in Bollywood, Priyanka Chopra touched upon how “colourism was normalised” in the industry and how it impacted some of her professional endeavours. In particular, the star spoke about her appearance in advertisements for fairness creams and shared that her skin tone had been lightened in several movies. Priyanka Chopra also went on to describe the advertisements that promised young girls a bright future only if they had lighter skin tone as extremely “damaging.” 

Sharing her experience, Priyanka Chopra said: “I remember when I joined movies, I was considered dusky, written as the dusky actress and I was like ‘What is dusky? What does it mean?'. Yet, I did a commercial because you are doing a beauty brand. A beauty brand is a really big part of an actress' trajectory. And all the beauty brands were selling those creams,” referring to fairness creams.

Speaking about the impact of such advertisements, Priyanka Chopra added, “The commercial was so damaging. I am a darker-skinned girl and this guy comes in and I'm selling flowers and he comes in and he doesn't even look at me. I start using this cream and I get a job, I get the guy, all my dreams come true and it was like the mid-2000s.”

Priyanka Chopra explained that when she joined films, actresses with lighter skin tone had an advantage. “When I joined the movie business, if you were fair you were guaranteed some form of success or casting but if you were darker, I'm not even that dark, for darker girls it was, ‘let's lighten you up,'” she shared. In particular, she recalled an incident where she was required to play a woman whose skin was “fair as milk”. “I was lightened up in many movies. Through make-up and then blasting lighting. There was a song which I still remember. It was called Chitti Dudh Kudi which means a girl who is as white as milk and I ain't that but I was playing her and I was really lightened up in the movie,” she said about the song from the film Kismat starring the actress alongside Bobby Deol.

Here are a few images of Priyanka Chopra from the recording session of the podcast, shared on the official Instagram handle of Armchair Expert.

In the same interview, Priyanka Chopra also revealed the reason behind her deciding to concentrate on her career in Hollywood over Bollywood. The actress said that she was “being pushed into a corner in the industry (Bollywood).” She added, “I had people not casting me, I had beef with people, I am not good at playing that game so I kind of was tired of the politics and I said I needed a break.”

 Priyanka Chopra is one of the biggest names in Indian cinema to have made a successful crossover to Hollywood. After impressing fans and critics alike with her inspired performances in Hindi films, the actress made her debut in the music industry in Hollywood with her 2012 single In My City. While many assumed that scaling Hollywood was the natural progression for Priyanka Chopra after ruling Bollywood, in a new podcast the actress has revealed that she shifted her base and career to the US because was tired of the politics in the Hindi film industry and had “beef with people”.

Speaking to Dax Shepard on the podcast Armchair Expert, Priyanka Chopra said that she was sharing the reason behind her deciding to work in the US for the very first time. During the course of the podcast, Dax Shepard asked: “So how do you decide you want to even put yourself through that? Why'd you decide to put yourself through that and then what was it?” To this, Priyanka said, “I've never said this so I'm going to say it because you'll make me feel safe.”

Speaking about the circumstances around her move to Hollywood, she revealed: “I was being pushed into a corner in the industry (Bollywood). I had people not casting me, I had beef with people, I am not good at playing that game so I kind of was tired of the politics and I said I needed a break."

The actress explained that during this phase, Anjula Acharia of Desi Hits – who is currently Priyanka Chopra's manager –  saw her in a video and contacted her. At this point, Priyanka Chopra was shooting for Vishal Bharadwaj's Saat Khoon Maaf. Explaining that she had heard Priyanka Chopra's demo, Anjali asked if the actress would be interested in a music career in the US. The actress said that the offer came at a time when she was looking for options outside Bollywood.

She added, “This music thing gave me an opportunity to go into another part of the world, not crave for the movies I didn't want to get but I would require to schmooze certain clubs and cliques of people. It would require grovelling and I had worked a long time by then that I didn't feel like I wanted to do it.”

“So, when this music thing came, I was like ‘f*** it, I am going to America',” Priyanka Chopra confessed candidly. 

The official Instagram page of Armchair Expert Podcast shared some behind-the-scenes images of Dax Shepard and Priyanka Chopra from the session. The caption says, “Starting off this week with a banger — Priyanka Chopra joins us today. Super smart, spunky as hell…we loved our time with Priyanka Chopra.”

As we know now, Priyanka Chopra's move to Hollywood was not confined to just the music industry. The actress cemented her place with her ABC series Quantico, and with the show become the first South Asian to headline an American network drama series. 

The actress followed this up with a mix of Bollywood and Hollywood projects such as Bajirao Mastani, The White Tiger,  The Sky Is Pink, Baywatch, and The Matrix Resurrections, among others. Priyanka Chopra will be seen next in the film Love Again and the web series Citadel. In Bollywood, she will be seen in Jee Le Zaraa.