Priyanka Chopra Says She Was Told to Get a "Boob Job" as a Teenager
Priyanka Chopra Says She Was Told to Get a "Boob Job" as a Teenager
"If I wanted to be an actress, he said, I'd need to have my proportions 'fixed,'" she recalled.
After earning the crown as Miss World in 2000, Priyanka Chopra was primed for superstardom, but in her book, Unfinished, she explains that winning the pageant didn't mean she was subjected to sexist scrutiny. In fact, she wrote that during meetings, directors and even her own manager told her that she needed plastic surgery — breast implants, facial work, and even a butt implant — if she wanted to be a successful actress.
"After a few minutes of small talk, the director/producer told me to stand up and twirl for him," Chopra wrote, according to Metro. "I did. 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."
RELATED: Priyanka Chopra Twinned With Her Instagram-Famous Dog Diana
"If I wanted to be an actress, he said, I'd need to have my proportions 'fixed,' and he knew a great doctor in L.A. he could send me to," she continued. "My then manager voiced his agreement with the assessment."
She admitted that it was so early in her career that she didn't know what to do. Later on, she says, she has since walked out of similar situations. As a new face, she said, she was afraid to speak up and develop a reputation.
"It's so normalized that it doesn't come up in conversation. I talked about a movie that I walked out of because of how I was spoken to by the director. It was early in my career, but I never told him why I walked out," she told Metro. "I never had the courage to stand up for myself and actually admit it. Because I heard so often, 'Don't be a nuisance, you're new in the industry, you don't want to have a reputation that you cause trouble or you're not easy to work with.' Now on the other side of 35, I know that's a normalized thing that girls hear so often."
RELATED: Priyanka Chopra Had a Wardrobe Malfunction That Left Her "Freaking Out"
She finished by saying that she wanted to call out all the people who were doing things right, like female producers and other people in roles of power that bring people together to collaborate, not criticize.
"I've mentioned a bunch of female producers in the book that I really admire, who've taken charge of their own lives and said, 'Alright, you're not going to make a part for me or the movie that I want to be in — I'm going to produce it myself,'" she told the outlet. "We see so many women that have banded together to be able to do it ourselves and [are] taking back our power. Now we're seeing, we are that generation that is hopefully going to see women in leadership roles, that is going to see women in roles of power, so that the next generation that comes after us doesn't have to inherit these issues."
