Priyanka Chopra’s memoir Unfinished is out now!

Priyanka Chopra has been really busy promoting ‘The White Tiger’ for quite some time now. She is hoping that it will generate some major buzz, as in hoping it gets some big nominations at the upcoming awards events. The promotion she has been doing to put the word out there is similar to how Jennifer Lopez was really eyeing an Oscar nomination for her film ‘Hustlers’. Yes, JLo was great in the film but not worthy of an Academy Awards nomination.

Other than promoting ‘The White Tiger’, Priyanka has also been promoting her book titled ‘Unfinished‘. The book, a memoir filled with stories about her life, is already out now in stores. It’s a bit strange to have someone this young release a memoir but maybe that’s why she titled it ‘Unfinished’. Sure, the money stars get for these memoirs is great so no wonder she agreed to it. The book deal was announced in 2018, the same year that she tied the knot.

Since she married Nick Jonas, there has been more interest in her internationally. The Jonas Brothers also signed deals to embark on a new journey post their married lives. They had a documentary that released last year and they had a new album with a tour soon after. So things have been good on their end and despite not getting that many interesting movie offers, PC is doing well.

So since it’s already out now, you must be wondering if the real interesting things are in the memoir. It would be weird if they are because PC’s image has evolved now and there’s not going to be anything scandalous featured in the book. According to PC, she mentioned that her memoir features only things that mattered to her NOW.

I was honest about things that mattered to me and my journey right now. Which is why I mean that this is a very honest reflection of where I am at the moment. I didn’t edit my book in a way that ‘this is something I don’t want to talk about’ or ‘this is something I can’. If it is true to me in the moment, it is in the book. If it doesn’t matter to me, it is not in the book. It is very honest telling of that tale

Just so you know, she does mention the “relationship” while talking about losing her dad.

She did share a couple of other stories that might have the required shock value but is about other people being mean to her. Obviously, she does not name these people as it would be too risky. She still has a career here in Bollywood, so why risk that. Selling a memoir, the best way to do that is to release bits and pieces first to get the audience interested. Of course, these bits and pieces have to be shocking and surprising or people won’t care. Besides, there’s already a lot out there about PC. She’s a star and has told her story many times. If you are a fan, there’s nothing new you will find out except about her life prior to becoming a star.

To make the book interesting and intriguing, she had to share moments that were untold before. There must be a lot before she became a star as PC got dropped from a lot of films before she got Akshay Kumar’s ‘Andaaz‘ and Sunny Deol’s ‘Hero’. This information was already provided in her unauthorized bio titled ‘The Dark Horse’.

The people that PC spoke about and named in her memoir were notified before the release, so they are not surprised. Safe to say that the two big stars everyone is thinking about won’t be mentioned. But just think, had one of them still been friends (or whatever it was) with her, there would have been good wishes on social media. She also doesn’t mention the big superstar that whined about her leaving his film after begging to star in it. She does mention him in another story, though. Surprisingly, she mentioned her first co-star Vijay. PC made her debut in films in a Tamil film called ‘Thamizhan’ starring Vijay.

Everyone who is mentioned in the book, has read the book. I was very clear about that. I didn’t want any surprises later. In fact, I worked on it in a very weird way. When I wrote about my experiences, I penned down my version that I remembered. Then I would call up the person who was part of it, to corroborate my story. I needed a lot of filling in the blanks from them. Memory is funny thing; you leave a lot behind.

Coincidentally, a renowned celebrity who is speaking out on the Farmers’ Protests’ on social media asked why PC was silent on the protests after several international celebrities spoke out. Then, boom! These details below were released. Now it can just be a simple coincidence…Or it it can be a tactic to cover that up! Celebs’ PR do this a lot, release something else to divert the attention.

Priyanka on her memoir, Unfinished

I didn’t write about these things now to clarify anything to anyone. I was in a place in my life where I sat down and wrote about the milestones in my life. These happened to be those things, that I’d kept personal in my heart, things I’ve been affected by.

I’m a woman in the entertainment business, which is kind of patriarchal, I had to be very tough. When entertainers show their weakness, people enjoy pulling you down. I learnt to keep my walls up. I kept them up, did my job and didn’t talk about the things I overcame. I’m much older and self-assured now, which makes it easier to discuss things from the past. This book is not me offering any form of clarification. It’s a story of my life from my eyes.

Other than not naming certain people, it is no doubt that certain situations are not going to be featured in the book, especially things that she has always denied or pretended it didn’t happen!

Did you realize that PC has not released her music album? It was meant to come out years ago when she was blasting up but nothing happened! We forgot about it until she recently mentioned her music career in the US.

Here are a few bits of her memoir that she is using to promote the book:

When a director suggested her to fix her “proportions”:

After a few minutes of small talk, the director/producer told me to stand up and twirl for him. I did. He stared at me long and hard, assessing me, and then suggested that I get a boob job, fix my jaw, and add a little more cushioning to my butt. If I wanted to be an actress, he said, I’d need to have my proportions ‘fixed’, and he knew a great doctor in LA he could send me to. My then-manager voiced his agreement with the assessment.

Then-manager is Prakash Jaju who was embroiled in a controversy and was even sent to jail. The same manager was responsible for asking PC to concentrate on her career instead of ….

Long story short, he was the one who leaked the phone calls details.

The twirling thing, if you have seen the movie ‘Bombshell’, the old creep boss at Fox News used to ask all the ladies who came to work for that company do the exact same thing. Actually, there it got worst because it wasn’t just twirling around. Check out the film if you haven’t, it’s a true story.

On working with Tamil superstar Vijay in her first film

Vijay’s humility and his generosity with fans made a lasting impression on me.

The director who wanted her to show her panties in a seductive song!

The director suggested I speak to my stylist, so I called him and briefly explained the situation, then passed the phone to the director. Standing right in front of me, the director said: “Jo bhi ho, chaddiyan dikhni chahiyen. Nahi toh log picture kyon dekhne aayenge?” which translates as “whatever happens, panties should be seen. Otherwise, why would people come to watch the movie?

I was ready to go full-out as a temptress in the number. The director’s words and tone, though, conveyed that he regarded me in a way that I found unacceptable.

About her sinus infection that resulted in her getting nose surgery but instead of doing his job properly, the surgeon accidentally shaved away the bridge of her nose!

My original nose was gone. My face looked completely different. I wasn’t me anymore. I felt devastated and hopeless. Every time I looked in the mirror, a stranger looked back at me, and I didn’t think my sense of self or my self-esteem would ever recover from the blow. The experience was very emotional for my whole family—my parents were doctors, after all; how could this have happened?—and to make matters worse, the experience was a public affair.

About one of the biggest missteps of her career, endorsing a fairness cream:

All I could think of was how I’d felt as a teenage girl using store-bought and homemade fairness concoctions because I believed my skin color made me unattractive,” she writes of her regrets. “I thought about how pained I’d felt when I was called kaali as a child. I was now promoting the destructive messages that had so eaten away at my sense of self-worth when I was growing up, and I knew the only person I could blame was myself.

About her music career and how she ventured into acting

I started doing music in America first. I was signed to Interscope records, I put out a couple of records, but the music was just, to me it just didn’t live up to my creative standards.

So I pivoted into what I knew best, which was acting and when I started looking for the parts I wanted to do in Hollywood, I realised that I don’t think people could understand the concept of having a brown leading lady or man in mainstream entertainment.

I don’t mean genre movies, I don’t mean independent cinema, but I mean mainstream Hollywood movies and shows. That conceptually was strange for me but it was also an impetus to demand something different.

I had a lot of faith on what I could bring to the table, I know what I could do when I got onto a set and I just wanted the opportunity be on one.

Snippets of the book online from reviews

About losing her father and going through depression:

In the spring of 2016, she moved from Canada to New York to shoot Quantico‘s second season and, lonely and still harboring so much grief, she fell into a depression (though she doesn’t think she was clinically depressed). A year later, still sad and now in mourning for both her dad and the end of a romantic relationship, she stopped going out except to work on her show’s final season. She stayed up into the wee hours every night, barely slept, and gained almost 20 pounds (which online haters made sure to point out).

Meeting Nick Jonas

Thanks to the ABC marketing blitz, Quantico billboards were everywhere in the fall of 2015—and Nick Jonas noticed. Kevin Jonas had watched the show, and told his little brother he should totally try to meet the gorgeous actress who played FBI trainee Alex Parrish. Nick also happened to know actor Graham Rogers, who played Caleb Haas on the drama, and texted him “Priyanka. Is. Wow.”

Her last relationship before Nick ended in 2016

Meanwhile, she had sworn off dating following her painful 2016 breakup, but she was getting to know Nick from afar. In fact, their first date could have been a farewell party for President Barack Obama at the White House in January 2017, which Nick invited her to—but she had to work. Palm-to-face. “Huge disappointment” is seemingly a huge understatement. She didn’t really start to emerge from her consuming sadness until the end of 2017.

The book also features unseen pictures of Priyanka, Nick, their doggies, and her family. She spoke about staying at a boarding school, moving to America and being bullied by her schoolmates. Then she talked about winning Miss World, which basically started her road to fame, to Bollywood and then to Hollywood.

While speaking to the LA Times about her future, PC said:

I want to take on roles that make me nervous and uncomfortable. I want to check in with my artistic self and lean in as a producer and tell the stories I want to see—female stories, South Asian stories. I want to be an entrepreneur. Probably have a family. There’s so much. I feel like it’s been 20 years that I’ve been doing this, but there’s so much that, God willing, given the opportunity I still want to do.

And she most definitely should! 

Priyanka Chopra’s memoir ‘Unfinished‘ is available now online.

Have you read the book yet?

Are there parts or stories that you wished were in there? 😉