Priyanka Chopra says she can’t be at people’s house to stop them from talking about her

Priyanka Chopra, who is gearing up for the release of her Prime Video series Citadel, was in Mumbai a few weeks ago. Recently, she had talked about her experience in Bollywood, and said in an interview that she was being ‘pushed into the corner’ and was ‘tired of the politics’ in the film industry. Now, in a recent conversation the actor opened up about the ways in which she has prepared herself to deal with the comments and the trolls. (Also read: Priyanka Chopra recalls mom earning more than her father: ‘There was no ego, ghar pe hi toh aa raha hai’)

A few weeks ago, Priyanka said to Dax Shepherd on his podcast Armchair Expert, that she wasn’t getting good roles, and was struggling amid industry politics in Bollywood when her current manager and friend Anjula Acharia offered her to try her luck in music in the west. She then ventured into acting offers from Hollywood as well, and landed in the lead role in ABC’s Quantico. Since then, Priyanka has been seen in Baywatch, Matrix: Revolutions, and The White Tiger.

Now speaking to Anupama Chopra for Film Companion’s Front Row conversation, Priyanka was asked how she deals with the comments and the bullying that has come along her way. To this Priyanka responded, “I came to terms with the byproduct of fame very early in my career. When I first joined the industry I quickly realized that women specifically, but generally actors are more written about- and this is a you thing, like a media thing. People like to write about everything else but their achievements. Media likes to write about how they fell on a stage how they tripped up on a word, or anything…especially for women, that time it was written about who’s her boyfriend, who is she seeing. So you had no identity, it happened right at the beginning of my career. So I took a decision to keep my private life very private. I was ferociously private about it. I’ve never ever spoken about it and it is something that I maintain even now.”

Further adding how her position as a public figure inherently entails the consequence of being in the media, Priyanka said, “I am a public figure which means most of my life is for consumption. You can talk about me I can’t stop you. You can sit and eat bread with your grandparents and say ‘Accha usne toh yeh pehna tha. usne toh ye kia tha. Uska toh ye hua tha. Main toh nahi rok sakti.’ (Oh, she wore this, she did that. She had done this. I can’t stop that.) I can’t come in to your houses and do that. So I have to make peace with the fact that that’s going to happen and I did that very early. I started protecting myself by creating a really tight circle of people that I trust. My team, my family, my friends.”

Priyanka Chopra is currently busy promoting her upcoming spy-thriller web series Citadel. The Russo Brothers-helmed show also stars Richard Madden and Stanley Tucci. She also has the rom-com Love Again up for release next month in the pipeline.