“I’m not a nepo baby” — Priyanka Chopra’s candid-speak in a podcast aired on Spotify recently has stirred up a hornet’s nest in Bollywood. In a freewheeling two-hour-30-minute interview with Dax Shepard for the Armchair Expert podcast, the Bollywood actress who’s now settled in Los Angeles opened up about meeting husband Nick Jonas, pay gap, freezing one’s eggs, colour bias and the Hindi film industry that forced her to shift base to the US. We pick seven ‘truth bombs’ that the Dil Dhadakne Do star dropped during the podcast.

Why Priyanka didn’t want to date Nick Jonas

The 40-year-old actress disclosed that she was reluctant to date her now-husband Nick Jonas as she wasn’t sure if the American singer-songwriter would want to start a family in his mid-20s. “I always knew I wanted kids and that was one of the reasons I didn’t want to date Nick because I was like I don’t know if he would want kids at 25… I love kids, I have worked with kids at UNICEF, I have volunteered at kids’ hospitals, I am like a kid whisperer, and I would rather spend time with children than with adults. I love kids, all our parties are kids- and dogs-friendly, at our house, you can bring them anytime,” Priyanka said in the podcast.

What made her say yes to Nick

Their relationship took off with Nick Jonas DM-ing Priyanka on Twitter at a time when she was in a “tumultuous relationship”. Her friends persuaded her to date him. Nick’s brother Kevin, who loved Quantico, prodded the former to reach out to the actress.

“He just DM-ed me and I was like ‘Why don’t you just text me?’ because my social team will just read these messages. He was like ‘Ya, ya, ya, you just want to give me your number.’ I kinda did, didn’t wanna admit at that time because I was in a relationship,” Priyanka told Dax.

“I didn’t want to engage as much at the time. I was like 35, he was 25. I really put a stop on it in a way because I judged the book by the cover. I said I wanna settle down; I have been there and done the fun days. I was like ready to get serious, not realising my husband was actually a dear old man stuck in a 25-year-old’s body.”

Why she chose to freeze her eggs

The Aitraaz actress had a word of advice for young women who are considering late motherhood, like her. “The biological clock is for real. It gets so much harder to get pregnant after 35 and to carry to term and all of that, especially with women that have been working all our lives… If you can afford it, I tell people you save money for a car, do it for this Christmas. This is the best gift you will give yourself because you are taking the power of your biological clock… Your eggs will be of the same age as when you froze them,” said Priyanka.

“I felt such freedom. I did it in my early 30s and could continue on an ambitious warpath. I wanted to achieve, and I wanted to get to a certain place in my career. Also, I had not met the person I wanted to have children with,” she added.

Achieving pay parity with her male co-stars

Priyanka, who became a global face with the TV series Quantico, shared that she got equal pay as her male co-star for the upcoming Amazon Prime Video series Citadel. “I am a vocal girl. I have asked for it. I have been down this road before. After that, whatever it was, I’ve always had parity if I’m playing a co-lead with someone. It’s amazing. I hope my daughter, or the next generation of girls, are not having this conversation,” she said.

“It obviously depends on what role it is, and how much work you’re putting in. But if he is a co-lead of mine, he should get paid what I’m paid, or the other way round,” the Quantico actress added.

How skin colour affected her career

Priyanka also revealed that she was “lightened up” in many movies “through make-up and then blasting lighting”. She added that people with fairer skin had a bigger chance of being cast in films.

“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. When I joined the movie business, if you were fair you were guaranteed some form of success or casting but if you were darker… I’m not even that dark, for darker girls it was, ‘let’s lighten you up’,” she said, regretting working in “damaging” fairness commercials during the early years of her career.

“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’s trajectory. And all the beauty brands were selling those creams,” she said.

Why she chose to change her accent

Recalling her childhood days in the US, Priyanka said no one would understand her name and so she asked them to call her just “Pri”.

“I felt the need to dramatically change my accent when I was in school because if I said something, the next sentence would be ‘huh?’, ‘excuse me?’, ‘sorry, what?’ It gets so annoying after a point. People debate this a lot about immigrants who come in and their accents change. It is basically making it convenient for another person,” she said.

“Now, my husband, for example, is American. When he comes to India, his accent changes… He has a little bit more of an Indian-English accent because he is trying to make it more convenient for everyone who hears it a certain way,” Priyanka added.

Why she left Bollywood

Priyanka said she was terrified after a magazine branded her ‘finished’ after she delivered a string of flops. “I’m not a nepo baby. I didn’t have that kind of support that exists in a big way in Bollywood movies. You know they are multi-generational actors that come in and get multiple opportunities versus the ones that come in from outside. You don’t have your uncle making a movie for you just because your last one tanked, right? You have to get it and you have to hustle for it,” the Fashion actress said.

“I was being pushed into a corner in the industry. 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 added.