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Like so many around the world, the pandemic forced Priyanka Chopra Jonas to slow down and reflect. The actress put the year to good use, however, noting those reflections down to form her memoir, Unfinished, which hits shelves on Tuesday.
The book recounts Chopra Jonas's 20-year career, which has taken her from beauty queen to Hollywood star, via Bollywood. However, the star also gets candid about her personal life, delving into her regrets, her personal grief and her whirlwind romance with pop star husband Nick Jonas, whom she married in December 2018.
Here are five things we learned about the star from the pages of Unfinished.
Racist bullying
Chopra Jonas, 38, was born in Jamshedpur, India, but moved to America when she was 12 years old. For three years, she lived with relatives across New York City, Indianapolis and Massachusetts.
In her memoir, she reveals how other students would shout racist insults at her in the hallways when she attended high school.
She writes of how she tried to ignore the bullying, seeking solace among friends and a guidance counsellor, but it all became too much, so she decided to go back home.
"I took it very personally," the actress said in an interview with People magazine. "Deep inside, it starts gnawing at you."
However, she said that returning back to India "healed her".
"I was so blessed that when I went back to India, I was surrounded by so much love and admiration for who I was," she said. "Going back to India healed me after that experience in high school."
Skin lightening regret
The White Tiger star opens up about her guilt and regrets over promoting skin-lightening products, a controversial issue that affects many young women in India.
While promoting the book, she told Marie Claire that as a young girl, she believed black skin was unattractive, and grew up putting talcum powder on her face to make her skin appear lighter, something she said she felt had been normalised in South Asia.
Her marriage to Nick Jonas
Chopra and Jonas usually keep their marriage pretty private, but in the pages of Unfinished, she speaks freely about how the pair met and fell in love.
Describing Jonas as a “wave” that washed over her and swept her away, she reveals that it was his confidence and creativity that first attracted her to the star, and that the pair love to set and achieve goals together as husband and wife.
The highs and lows of breaking Bollywood
While being crowned as Miss World in 2000 was the spark that ignited Chopra’s career, she still had many highs and lows as she navigated breaking into Bollywood.
The star opens up about the different roles she took on in the early days of her career, and trying to keep the right balance to ensure she would be taken seriously as an actress.
The fight for inclusion in Hollywood
Chopra also opens up about the enormous pressure she felt when she made the jump from Bollywood to Hollywood, especially when she landed the lead role in TV series Quantico. The part made her the first South Asian to take a lead role in a US network series.
She talks of her want to prove herself in Hollywood, while also paving the way for greater inclusion in the industry, allowing others to follow in her lead.
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