Priyanka Chopra Jonas Describes Director’s ‘Dehumanizing’ Demand To See Her Underwear

Priyanka Chopra Jonas has said she experienced a “dehumanizing” situation while working on a movie set in its early days.

In a new interview with Zoe’s ReportThe “Citadel” star recounted the awkward moment when an anonymous Bollywood director demanded to see her underwear.

She said it happened around 2002 or 2003, while she was preparing to play an undercover character.

“I’m undercover, I’m seducing the guy, obviously that’s what girls do when they’re undercover. But I’m seducing the boy and you have to take off a piece of clothing [at a time],” She explained.

“I wanted to layer up. The filmmaker said, ‘No, I need to see his underwear.’ Otherwise, why is someone coming to see this movie?’” he recalled.

The actor noted that the director never directly told him this, instead giving the nasty order to the stylist in front of her.

“It was such a dehumanizing moment. It was a feeling of, I am nothing other than how I can be used, my art is not important, what I bring to it is not important,” she continued.

Chopra Jonas explained that after two days on set, she couldn’t take it anymore and left the project, adding: “I just couldn’t watch [the director] every day.”

He ended up paying the production crew out of his own money to reimburse them for what they had spent, he said.

Chopra Jonas, who was a Bollywood star and crowned Miss World Before taking her career to the United States, she shared that she has since learned to protect herself in the industry.

“I was 17 years old when I started doing this. I have been torn apart, my actions and decisions have been scrutinized,” she said. “I have learned to protect myself by building barriers and walls”,[but] now that i’ve done this long enough, the lines are blurry for me. The public person and the real person are becoming the same.”

Since then, Chopra Jonas has appeared in popular films like 2022’s “The Matrix Revolutions” and 2017’s “Baywatch.” In March, she shared why she finally decided to draw the curtain on her Bollywood career.

“There were people who didn’t elect me, I had problems with people, I’m not good at playing that game, so I was tired of politics and said I needed a break,” Chopra Jonas, who shares her 1 year old malti daughter with her husband, Nick Jonas, said at the “Armchair Expert” podcast.