Priyanka Chopra Jonas has opened up about the "dark phase" she suffered following surgery that went wrong and left her unrecognizable even to herself in the early 2000s.
At just 18 years old, she swept as Miss World and Priyanka Chopra's career was catapulted. The actress began to work in numerous Bollywood productions in her country and she would soon begin to plan her move to Hollywood, since she had lived in the United States for several years during her adolescence.
However, Priyanka faced a hard blow due to a medical complication that plunged her into depression by changing her face, and she has now remembered that time on Howard Stern's show.
"It was a dark period. This thing happens, and my face is completely different, and I went into a deep, deep depression," she confesses.
The actress assures that she was clear that her career had ended "before it began," and that she was fired from three films after what happened. Priyanka says that she was not able to leave the house, until her father, who is a doctor, convinced her to have surgery again and have corrective surgery.
"I was terrified of that, but he told me, 'I'll be with you in the operating room.' And he held my hand throughout the process and helped me build my self-confidence again," she says.
The actress also thanks Bollywood director Anil Sharma for not firing her like others.
"I was supposed to star in a role, and they changed me to a supporting character. The director was very kind, while the whole tide was against me, he told me, 'it will be a small role but you give it everything you have.' I did," Chopra recalls.
The story of her operation first came to light thanks to her memoir, 'Unfinished', where Priyanka had the courage to tell her experience.
After being crowned Miss World 2000, she started having flu complaints and a "very bad nasal infection," which resulted in breathing problems that she couldn't ignore as an asthmatic, she says.
Then, a doctor found a polyp in her nasal cavity, and they told her that they had to remove it with "a completely routine operation", unfortunately it did not turn out as expected.
"While I was ripping the polyp, the doctor accidentally tore the septum of my nose, and everything fell apart. When it was time to remove the bandages and the condition of my nose was revealed, my mother and I were horrified." , Priyanka remembers with a breaking voice.
"My original nose was gone. My face was completely different. It wasn't me anymore," she recalls, saying she felt "devastated and hopeless." "Every time I looked in the mirror, a stranger would stare back at me, and I didn't think my self-esteem would ever recover."
But with time and work on herself (and many other surgeries to fix the terrible accident) she was regaining her confidence and accepting her new face, which she has already "got used to."
"Now when I look in the mirror, I'm no longer surprised, I've made peace with this slightly different 'I'. This is my face. This is my body. I may have flaws, but it's me," the actress concludes.
