Priyanka Chopra is about to have her moment. The Quantico star will be stepping into a major new role as the villain in Baywatch opposite Zac Efron and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. In addition to being a major actress, Chopra is also extremely woke and feminist. She got real about bullying in a new interview with Glamour.
Chopra apparently faced bullying so bad that she literally left the country and went to India.
"There was this girl who was a major bully," Chopra tells Glamour. "I think she didn’t like me because her boyfriend liked me, or some high school dynamic. She made my life hell. She used to call me names and would push me against the locker. High school’s hard for everybody, and then there’s this woman. I asked my mom, 'What do you think about me coming back?' She flew down and picked me up."
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Not that things were all perfect back in her home country. She says that, because of the color of her skin, she faced a lot of pressure to use lightening cream.
"A lot of girls who have a darker skin hear things like, 'Oh, poor thing, she’s dark. Poor thing, it’ll be hard for her.' In India they advertise skin-lightening creams: 'Your skin’s gonna get lighter in a week.' I used it [when I was very young]. Then when I was an actor, around my early twenties, I did a commercial for a skin-lightening cream. I was playing that girl with insecurities. And when I saw it, I was like, 'Oh shit. What did I do?' And I started talking about being proud of the way I looked. I actually really like my skin tone."
And she should. Nobody should feel ashamed of how they look. It's also ridiculous because, obviously, she's now an internationally famous actress. But it's heartening to know that even someone like Chopra, who must have known on some level she was bound for the screen, didn't always feel 100% confident in how she looked.