Priyanka Chopra Jonas has shared her regret over promoting skin-lightening creams in the past.
The Hollywood and Bollywood actress previously appeared in adverts for Garnier and Pond’s which promoted skin lighteners.
In particular in an advert for Pond’s, the plotline centred around Chopra playing a darker-skinned woman who lost her partner to a lighter-skinned woman. The storyline saw Chopra use the Pond’s skin-lightening product to eventually win the man back.
The controversy surrounding the advert re-emerged in 2020 when Chopra shared her public support for the Black Lives Matter movement last year, with people pointing out she had previously been paid to promote skin-lighteners.
List of Indian actors who are speaking on BLM and their fairness cream ads, a thread : pic.twitter.com/yUeRNLch6U
— anti pigeon (@aluminiummaiden) May 31, 2020
The actress, who is married to singer Nick Jonas, has now opened up about the controversy in her new memoir , apologising for her actions.
The 38-year-old reflected upon her childhood, admitting her darker skin had made her feel “unattractive”, leaving her self-worth diminished.
“I thought about how pained I’d felt when I was called kaali [a derogatory term meaning dark-skinned] as a child,” she said in her memoir. “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.”
She went on to say that appearing in those campaigns are one of her “most profound regrets”.
“I can’t go back and change what I did, but I can apologise, and I do so sincerely,” she explained. “To all the people who saw the harmful messaging that I contributed to, to all the people who still have to see commercials like these in every medium – I am deeply sorry.”
