Priyanka Chopra opens up about racist bullying she endured as a teenager
The actor said the bullying affected her self-esteem
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Priyanka Chopra has revealed she suffered from racist bullying whilst at high school.
The 36-year-old actor, who married singer Nick Jonas in December 2018, was born in India but moved to the US when she was 13-years-old.
Chopra lived in a number of different states, attending schools in Massachusetts, Iowa, and Queens, New York, where she says she endured “really racist behaviour”.
“I was treated differently because I'm brown,” Chopra told the Associated Press.
“I had, you know, really racist behaviour when I was in high school in 10th grade. I was called ‘Brownie’, ‘Curry’, [told to] ‘go back on the elephant you came on’, and that really affected me when I was a kid and affected my self-esteem.”
The UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador added that she thinks racial bullying is a by-product of “cultural, subliminal messaging that has happened over eons”, and has vowed to do what she can to change things for future generations.
“I do want to create a world for my future kids where they don’t have to think about diversity, where they’re not talking about it because it’s normal,” Chopra said.
“I’m a glass half full kind of girl. I like to believe in positivity and I think it’s up to us to create that environment for the next generation.”
Chopra made the revelations during a press conference for her new role as an ambassador for skincare company Obagi and its new Skinclusion campaign, which aims to promote diversity in the beauty industry.
The Baywatch actor has previously spoken about how she struggled to find products suited to her skin tone, calling it the “biggest hindrance” she had ever experienced with beauty.
“Most high-end, luxury products are not made for people of colour, so why the hell are we buying creams for ‘all skin types?’”, she told Elle earlier this month.
“I simply couldn't figure out what to use. I would just keep mixing products and trying whatever was advertising better ... it was all trial and error."
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