"Was called black cat": Priyanka Chopra reveals facing colour discrimination in Bollywood

Global icon Priyanka Chopra Jonas who is one of the only four Indians to make it to the list of BBC’s ‘100 Women’ this year recalled facing colour discrimination in bollywood during her initial days. "I was called ‘black cat’, ‘dusky’. I mean, what does ‘dusky’ even mean in a country where we are literally all are brown? I thought I was not pretty enough, I believed that I would have to work a lot harder, even though I thought I was probably a little bit more talented than my fellow actors who were lighter skinned. But I thought that was right because it was so normalised," she said.

She also spoke about never getting paid equal to the male lead in her early days in Bollywood."I've never had pay parity in Bollywood. I would get paid about 10% of the salary of my male co-actor. It's (the pay gap) large, substantially large. And so many women still deal with that. I'm sure I will too if I worked with a male co-actor now in Bollywood. My generation of female actors have definitely asked (for equal pay). We've asked, but we've not got it," she says. On the work front, PC has a number of projects in her kitty which also includes Russo Brothers produced Citadel which is a OTT release. She is also making her Bollywood return with Farhan Akhtar's Jee Le Zaraa, which promises to be another tale of friendship following the lineage of Dil Chahta Hai and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara,. The film also stars Alia Bhatt and Katrina Kaif.