Priyanka Chopra opens up about being body shamed in Bollywood; discusses pay disparity

Priyanka Chopra is one of the most successful Bollywood celebrities, who managed to carve a niche in the global entertainment space as well. The actor recently spoke about her journey in Bollywood, mentioning that she was subjected to body shaming due to her complexion and further discussed the huge pay disparity that her generation of female actors witnessed. Priyanka said she was labelled ‘black cat’ and ‘dusky', which made her feel she wasn't pretty enough and would have to work harder than her counterparts. 

Priyanka Chopra says she was body-shamed in Bollywood

Priyanka has been included in BBC’s ‘100 Women’ list of influential figures of the year, being one of the four Indians to make the cut. Talking to the organisation about the large pay gap in the industry, she said, "It [the pay gap] is large, substantially large. And so many women still deal with that. I’m sure I will too if I worked with a male co-actor now in Bollywood."

Further shedding light on the patriarchy she faced as a young actor in the industry, Chopra added," thought it was absolutely okay to sit for hours and hours on set, while my male co-actor just took his own time, and decided whenever he wanted to show up on set is when we would shoot.”

Despite her accolades and merits, Priyanka shared she was called out because of her 'dusky' complexion. The actor said that the body shaming made her believe she had to put in more effort than her 'lighter-skinned' contemporaries despite being more talented. 

She mentioned, "I was called ‘black cat’, ‘dusky’. I mean, what does ‘dusky’ even mean in a country where we are literally all are brown? I thought I was not pretty enough, I believed that I would have to work a lot harder, even though I thought I was probably a little bit more talented than my fellow actors who were lighter skinned. But I thought that was right because it was so normalised.”

On the work front, Priyanka will be seen alongside Alia Bhatt and Katrina Kaif in Jee Le Zaraa. She also has Russo Brothers-backed Citadel and Love Again in the pipeline. 

(IMAGE: INSTAGRAM/ @PRIYANKACHOPRA)