Priyanka Chopra says she was criticised for her changing body, was told she is ‘ageing’: ‘It messed with my mind’

Actor Priyanka Chopra talked about her changing relationship with her body in a new podcast. She said that because she has been a part of the entertainment industry since the age of 17 and was used to the scrutiny, she thought for a while that unrealistic beauty standards were normal.

On Victoria’s Secret’s VS Voices podcast, Priyanka said, “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. 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.”

“I think it was a big journey for me because I grew up in the entertainment world, I learnt everything that was thrown at me at such a fast speed that I just imbibed the headlines in a way. I didn’t have time to delve deep into what it was doing to me, the person, not me, the public figure,” she added.

Priyanka said that she was at the receiving end of a lot of criticism after her father’s death when she sought 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. 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.

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Talking about her process of healing, Priyanka said that she gave her body ‘what it needed’, even if it was pizza at 1 am. Eventually, she reached a point where she felt like going for a run or doing something that would make her feel healthier. It took her two years to reach that place, she said.

Over the last two years, Priyanka has been healthiest, and it came after a ‘really dark phase’ of her life. She talked about becoming a vegetarian recently, and how 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 especially hard for her to do this because of the nature of her job.