Priyanka Chopra on why she did not speak up about demeaning experiences in Bollywood: 'I had to work within the system'

Priyanka Chopra said that she did not speak about the demeaning experiences she had in Bollywood back then because she was 'trying to make a career at that point'.

Priyanka Chopra was left with a bitter taste in her mouth in the early days of her career when a director said that her ‘panties should be seen’ in a song to draw in the audience. Another director-producer advised her to get a ‘boob job’ and other cosmetic enhancements. While she wrote in her memoir, Unfinished, that she chose not to do these projects, it took her several years to speak about these experiences.

Priyanka Chopra wrote about her unpleasant experiences in her memoir, Unfinished.

In an interview, Priyanka was asked about not falling prey to the insecurities that come with being a part of the entertainment industry. She admitted to being insecure, which is why she remained silent about it for such a long time.

Talking to Entertainment Tonight, Priyanka said, “I did because as much as I may have walked away from the project because of how he spoke about me or spoke to me... He didn't see me as an artist bringing something to the table, he saw me as an object for titillation. That's it. That's all I was there for. It makes you feel small. As much as I walked away from the movie because it made me feel that way, I didn't do anything about it. I didn't say anything about it because I had to work within the system. So I put my head down and I worked within the system.”

“Why did I do that? Because I had insecurities. I was scared. I was trying to make a career at that point. I didn't want it to be taken away from me. Girls are told, 'You don't want to attract the wrong kind of attention. You don't want to be hard to work with. You gotta smile and everything is alright.' I did that for a really long time because I was insecure. It’s okay to be insecure. No one is perfect. No one can live in black or white. Everyone lives in grey and that's okay,” she added.

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In Unfinished, Priyanka wrote about having an unpleasant meeting with the very first filmmaker she met after winning the Miss World crown in 2000. He asked her to ‘twirl’ for him and then suggested that she needed to get her proportions ‘fixed’ if she wanted to be an actor. “He stared at me long and hard, assessing me, and then suggested that I get a boob job, fix my jaw, and add a little more cushioning to my butt,” she wrote.

The other incident took place on the sets of a film Priyanka had signed. She was supposed to shoot for a sensual song and the director, while giving the stylist a brief about her look, emphasised that ‘chaddiyan dikhni chahiye (panties should be seen)’. She felt demeaned by his tone and quit the film the next day.