"he said, I’d need to have my proportions 'fixed'"
Priyanka Chopra has revealed that a director told her to undergo a “boob job” in order to “fix her proportions” during her early career.
The actress details the encounter in her memoir Unfinished and revealed it happened shortly after winning Miss World in 2000.
On the meeting, she wrote:
“After a few minutes of small talk, the director/producer told me to stand up and twirl for him. 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.
“If I wanted to be an actress, he said, I’d need to have my proportions ‘fixed’, and he knew a great doctor in LA he could send me to.
“My then-manager voiced his agreement with the assessment.
“I left the director/producer’s office feeling stunned and small. Was he right that I couldn’t be successful unless I had so many body parts ‘fixed?’
“I thought of how individuals in the media and others in the industry had referred to me as ‘dusky’ and ‘different-looking,’ and I wondered if I was cut out for this business after all.”
Priyanka did not listen to the director and parted ways with her then-manager shortly after.
However, she told Metro that it was seen as normal within the entertainment industry.
She said: “It’s so normalised 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.
“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’.
“I fell for it too, even though I consider myself a forward-thinking, smart girl.
“I learned from that over time, but at that time, I was terrified.”
“Yes I faced that then, I faced that like everybody else when you’re in patriarchal industries, which ours has been for a very long time.”
Priyanka Chopra went on to say that she is happy so many women are now taking leadership roles in every industry, not just the entertainment industry.
She added that if there were leading South Asian actors on mainstream TV, she would not have felt so insecure at school.