When Priyanka was called ‘too dark’ by a jury member to be crowned ‘Miss India’

Priyanka Chopra has always openly spoken about racism and how she faced the same when she was studying in America, when she was a kid. Not only during that time, but Priyanka faced racism even now when she made an entry in Hollywood with ‘Baywatch’ and the television show, ‘Quantico’. Even in the year 2000, when Priyanka was the participating in the Miss India contest, a jury member thought she wasn’t perfect to win the crown because of her dark complexion.

In the book by Aseem Chhabra which is titled, ‘Priyanka Chopra: The Incredible Story of a Global Bollywood Star’, Pradeep Guha recalled how one jury member was uncertain about Priyanka due to her skin color. Pradeep Guha was one of the mentors of the contestants.

Guha said, “Not everybody in the jury was initially in favour of her. One person mentioned she’s too dark,” further adding, ‘I said, ‘Yaar come on — look at South American girls. They keep winning and some of them are pretty dark as are all the girls from Africa. So I said what are you talking about? ‘I was always very certain about her and as I said this woman never made a mistake twice.”

“She kind of always improved on herself day on day, day on day. I knew that she would give in 200 per cent if she gets in,” Guha added.

He further added, “I think she needed a little more confidence. I think she wasn’t quite sure initially whether this was the thing she wanted to do. She came in a bit tentatively. By the time the contest started she seemed a lot more collected and definitely more confident of herself.”

The judges that year included Shah Rukh Khan, Waheeda Rehman, Juhi Chawla, Mohammed Azharuddin, film producer Pritish Nandy, painter Anjolie Ela Menon, Subhash Chandra, fashion designer Carolina Herrera and Marcus Swarovski.

Priyanka was 17 years old when she participated in the Femina Miss India 2000 contest from Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh. Lara Dutta, who was also competing, was crowned Femina Miss India Universe. PeeCee was the runner-up and was crowned Femina Miss India World and Dia Mirza, the second runner up, won the Femina Miss India Asia Pacific title. Eventually, all three of them won the title in their respective categories — Miss Universe, Miss World and Miss Asia Pacific.

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