On Victoria Secret’s VS Voices podcast, Bollywood actor Priyanka Chopra opened up about the dark side of entertainment industry and revealed she was constantly body shamed.
The Quantico actor stated, “Obviously, being raised in the industry and having such a tight lens on what my shape was, what my figure was or what my measurements were, minutely looking at every part of me, I kind of grew up for a while in my 20s, thinking that was normal. Like most young people, where you think about these unrealistic standards of beauty, which is like, absolutely Photo-shopped face, perfect hair. I never used my natural texture for years. I used to always just have blown out hair.”
She continued, “I think it was a big journey for me because I grew up in the entertainment world, I learnt everything that was thrown at me at such a fast speed that I just imbibed the headlines in a way. I didn’t have time to delve deep into what it was doing to me, the person, not me, the public figure.”
The 39-year-old shared that after her father’s demise she faced a lot of criticism, “I think over time when my body started changing and I went through that phase when I was eating my emotions, my body started changing, I reached my 30s, I went through struggle because I used to get online grief from people like, ‘You are looking different, you are ageing’, this and that.”
She added, “It messed with my mind at that time. My mind was already in such a dark place and I didn’t have time for it. My relationship with social media changed, my relationship with the internet changed… I incubated myself in a way where I protected myself, I went into my Cancerian self-preservation self and got back into my shell.”
However, Chopra shared it took her two years to get out of that dark phase and focus on her health, “I think it’s a phase. Every one of us will go through their ups and downs, but eventually, the sooner we start choosing ourselves, the better life becomes, when we get rid of the noise of what the expectation of someone else is.”
