Many of us look up to celebrities and aspire to have what they have, the glamour, the aesthetics. Priyanka Chopra Jonas may be one such celeb, rising to her fame from the Miss-India crown that was set on her head in 2000, and moving only up since. However, of late, she has not refrained from letting the fans in on the nitty-gritty, the elbow grease that goes into keeping her life this way.
On Victoria’s Secret’s VS Voices podcast, Chopra Jonas opened up about her relationship with her body and with her audience, “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, she said. “Like most young people, where you think about these unrealistic standards of beauty, which is like, absolutely Photoshopped face, perfect hair. I never used my natural texture for years. I used to always just have blown out hair.”
Priyanka Chopra mentioned feeling as if she had been catering to the needs of her public self before she nurtured and cared for herself as a person.
The actress said that she was at the receiving end of a lot of criticism over her changing body, especially after her father’s demise, which had led to her seeking solace in food. “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. 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.”
It came to a point where she knew she would have to change her approach to social media. “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,” she said.
To heal, she gave her body what it needed and was patient till the urge to do things like going on a run came naturally to her again.
Over the last couple of years, she has felt at her healthiest, and it came after a ‘really dark phase’ of her life. She has also turned into a vegetarian recently, claiming it has made a positive difference in her life. “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,” she said, adding that it was not easy for her to do this especially because of the nature of her stream.
Priyanka Chopra Jonas can be expected in many a project soon; while she will be seen in Matrix 4: Resurrections, she has Text For You with Celine Dion and Sam Heughan, a wedding-themed reality show, a romantic comedy with Mindy Kaling and the Ma Anand Sheela biopic. She will also be making her way back to Bollywood, appearing in Farhan Akhtar’s Jee Le Zaraa, with Alia Bhatt and Katrina Kaif.
