Priyanka Chopra says she’d eat alone in bathroom as a student in US, wasn’t allowed to date by her ‘conservative family’
Priyanka Chopra said that she doesn’t believe in the concept of faking it till you make it, but she certainly believes in ‘having a dialogue with yourself which hypes you be what you need to be’. She said this in context of her time as a high-schooler in the US. In a new interview, Priyanka said that she felt so out of place that she would eat all by herself in the washroom, because she didn’t know how high school cafeterias worked.
On the Today Show, she said that being her ‘own hype girl’ helped her navigate some ‘crazy situations’, especially when came to the US as a teenager. “I used to have my lunch in the bathroom, inside one of the stalls, because I was so nervous. I didn’t know how to go to the cafeteria and get food, I would get Doritos from a vending machine. I’d go to the bathroom, quickly eat, and go to my class, so I didn’t have to meet kids.” She said that this went on ‘for a really long time’, till she learned to get around the high school environment by observing others.
Asked if she had friends, she continued, “Eventually I did. This was the first three or four weeks, when I didn’t know anyone. The vending machine was easy. I preferred my own environment. I didn’t understand how to navigate hallways, how to find home room, how to go to a cafeteria, how do you grab a tray. All of that was new for me. I observed for the first three or four weeks, before I got the confidence, and I knew I wasn’t going to look like an idiot.”
Priyanka said that more than an Indian, she felt non-American. She admitted that she tried to fit in by changing ‘a lot’ of her identity. She also had to explain to her peers why she wasn’t allowed to date, or go out at night, coming from a conservative family.
Priyanka broke out after winning the Miss World title as a teenager, and subsequently made her acting debut in Bollywood. For the last decade, she has worked predominantly in the US. Priyanka can currently be seen in the Prime Video series Citadel, which premiered this week.
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