Actor Priyanka Chopra came under fire recently after she voiced her support for the Black Lives Matter protests. People on social media called her a hypocrite for joining an anti-racism movement while endorsing fairness products in India.
While Priyanka has still not responded to the controversy, her fans have dug up an old video interview that shows her explaining her side. In 2015, Priyanka gave an interview to journalist Barkha Dutt about her films and life. An audience member asked her why she had promoted fairness products in the past.
Priyanka said she did the endorsements for a year but later realised she didn’t need to do it. “I felt really bad about it, that’s why I stopped doing it,” she said. Priyanka also mentioned how her family and relative would make fun of her dusky skin. “All my cousins are gora-chitta (fair) I was the one who turned out dusky because my dad is dusky. Just for fun, my Punjabi family would call me ‘kaali, kaali, kaali’. At 13, I wanted to put fairness creams and wanted my complexion changed,” she said.
{{/usCountry}}Priyanka said she did the endorsements for a year but later realised she didn’t need to do it. “I felt really bad about it, that’s why I stopped doing it,” she said. Priyanka also mentioned how her family and relative would make fun of her dusky skin. “All my cousins are gora-chitta (fair) I was the one who turned out dusky because my dad is dusky. Just for fun, my Punjabi family would call me ‘kaali, kaali, kaali’. At 13, I wanted to put fairness creams and wanted my complexion changed,” she said.
{{/usCountry}}“But then I got into films and I didn’t understand. And I did do a fairness endorsement for a year and then I felt like ‘I look pretty alright.’ I shouldn’t, I don’t wanna do this and then I didn’t do it,” Priyanka said. “But I was also finding my ground that time as I was 21 or 22 years old,” she added. When Barkha asked her if she would do it again for a big sum of money, she said, “I have been offered many times, but I said no to them.”
Other than Priyanka, Sonam Kapoor and Disha Patani were also criticised for their ‘hypocritical’ messages on Black Lives Matter protests. Kangana Ranaut and Abhay Deol also called out the celebrities. “The Indian celebrities they’ve been endorsing all kinds of fairness products and today shamelessly they stand and say black lives matter, I mean how dare they? Our industry even shies away from casting darker actors for characters that are supposed to be fair-skinned. Why is no one asking them about these million-dollar deals that they’ve been doing with all kinds of fairness products and how come suddenly all black lives matter because racism is deep-rooted and when you have commercialised such events that is the lowest humanity can hit,” Kangana said in a recent interview with BBC.
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