"if you were fair, you were guaranteed some sort of success"
Following her revelations about why she left Bollywood, Priyanka Chopra claimed that her skin tone was lightened in some of her films.
During a podcast with Dax Shepard, Priyanka said she moved to the United States because she felt “cornered” in Bollywood.
She said: “I was being pushed into a corner in the industry (Bollywood).
“I had people not casting me, I had beef with people, I am not good at playing that game so I kind of was tired of the politics and I said I needed a break.”
Priyanka has now revealed that her skin tone was lightened up in her films and how it was damaging to participate in adverts for fairness creams.
Priyanka recalled: “I remember when I joined movies, I was considered dusky, written as the dusky actress and I was like ‘What is dusky? What does it mean?’
“Yet, I did a commercial (for fairness cream) because you are doing a beauty brand.
“A beauty brand is a really big part of an actress’ trajectory. And all the beauty brands were selling those creams.”
Priyanka stated that people with lighter skin had an advantage during casting in films.
She said: “When I joined the movie business, if you were fair, you were guaranteed some sort of success or casting, but if you were darker… and I’m not even that dark.
“For darker girls, it was like, well, let’s lighten you up.
“I was lightened up in many movies. Through make-up and then blasting lighting.”
“There was a song which I still remember. It was called ‘Chitti dudh kudi’ which means a girl who is as white as milk and I ain’t that but I was playing her and I was really lightened up in the movie.”
Speaking about an advert she did in the mid-2000s, Priyanka Chopra said she played a darker-skinned flower seller who is rejected by a man who does not even look at her.
But after she starts using fairness cream, she gets the guy and all her dreams come true.
She explained: “We were taught that damaging b******t. Even I got caught up into it and I look back on that, the commercial was so damaging.
“I’m darker skinned and this guy comes in, selling flowers, and he doesn’t even look at me.
“I start using this cream and I get a job, I get the guy and all my dreams come true. That was like the mid-2000s.”
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