'It was a dark phase,' she admitted.
Priyanka Chopra is opening up about a scary situation. During an appearance on SiriusXM's The Howard Stern Show, the 40-year-old actress recalled how a botched surgery made her fear that her career "was over before it started."
"It was a dark phase. I had been signed for all these big movies. This thing happens. My face looks completely different," Chopra said. "I went into a deep, deep depression. It was like the rug was pulled from under me. I was thrown out of three movies and it was very embarrassing."
Chopra's surgeon father Ashok Chopra, encouraged her to have corrective surgery.
"My father, who's a surgeon, was like, 'We've got to do another surgery.' I was terrified of that," she admitted. "He was like, 'I will be in the room with you.' He held my hands through it and helped me build back my confidence."
Eventually, Chopra was back on a movie set, though her part was reduced from a leading one to a supporting role.
"I was supposed to play this lead, and I was shifted to a supporting character," she remembered. "That filmmaker was very kind. He, while the tide was against me, said, 'It will be a small part but give it your all.' And I did."
Chopra detailed the botched procedure in her 2021 memoir, Unfinished, revealing it all started when she had to have a polyp surgically removed from her nasal cavity. What should have been a routine procedure hit a snag when the doctor accidentally shaved the bridge of her nose, which caused it to collapse and left Chopra feeling "horrified" and "hopeless."
After "several corrective surgeries," Chopra wrote that she has now "gotten accustomed to this face."
"Now when I look in the mirror, I am no longer surprised; I’ve made peace with this slightly different me," she wrote. "... I’m just like everyone else: I look at myself in the mirror and think maybe I can lose a little weight; I think maybe I can work out a little more. But I’m also content. This is my face. This is my body. I might be flawed, but I am me."
These days, Chopra is back on screens, starring in both a rom-com film, Love Again, and an action series, Citadel.
"I love that Love Again is an ode to the romantic movies from the '90s, like Sleepless in Seattle and Jerry Maguire, that make you want to cry and laugh and feel warm," Chopra told ET earlier this week. "I haven't been able to do that in America as much as I have done in India before, so I was very excited to do [action series] Citadel and Love Again at the same time."
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