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Priyanka Chopra Jonas, actress, activist, and wife of The Voice coach Nick Jonas, is releasing a new memoir in 2021 where she details aspects of her past including racism and bullying.
People reported that Chopra Jonas’s memoir, Unfinished, is due out on February 9 and includes descriptions of racist bullying the star went through when she was attending an American high school before she returned to India to escape the bullying.
“I took it very personally,” she told the outlet. “Deep inside, it starts gnawing at you.”
Chopra Jonas Says She ‘Went Into a Shell’
During an interview with People, Chopra Jonas explained what happened when she went through hard times during high school.
“I went into a shell,” she shared. “I was like, ‘Don’t look at me. I just want to be invisible.’ My confidence was stripped. I’ve always considered myself a confident person, but I was very unsure of where I stood, of who I was.”
Chopra Jonas attended high school in New York City, Indianapolis and Newton, Massachusetts for three years when she was young. She told the outlet that she was writing her memoir to encourage people who may be facing bullying that things do get better.
“Insecurity becomes small as soon as you talk about it with someone you trust: a therapist, a counselor,” she shared. “I feel like a lot of people spend their time when they’re feeling dark. That’s the worst thing to do, is to feel sad alone.”
She said that feeling sad is “seductive” and people often wallow in it because it feels comfortable and said that talking to people who care is the best way of getting out of that place.
Chopra Jonas Faced Racism as a Teenager
As a teenager, Chopra Jonas faced racism, which she detailed in her memoir. People would tell her to, “Go back to your country!” and “Go back on the elephant you came on” during high school. She says in her memoir that she tried to ignore it but couldn’t, according to People.
“I don’t even blame the city, honestly,” she said. “I just think it was girls who, at that age, just want to say something that’ll hurt. Now, at the other side of 35, I can say that it probably comes from a place of them being insecure. But at that time, I took it very personally.”
She said that she “broke up with America” and decided to go home to her mother and father instead of staying in the states.
“I was so blessed that when I went back to India, I was surrounded by so much love and admiration for who I was,” she shared with the outlet. “Going back to India healed me after that experience in high school.”
The Bollywood-turned-Hollywood actress said that she was trying to fit in in America and she wanted to be invisible, but that when she traveled back to India, she “chose to be different.”
Chopra Jonas married Nick Jonas in 2018 and has been spending time in London shooting the movie Citadel.
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