At Beautycon Festival LA this year, guests eagerly anticipated the appearance of Priyanka Chopra during her fireside chat with Beautycon founder and CEO, Moj Mahdara. Actress, film producer and philanthropist, Priyanka has garnered much admiration for her work ethic and the success she has achieved.
Priyanka shared her definition of feminism as, “my choice, my opinion, my life.” As the winner of the Miss World 2000 pageant, Priyanka’s experience has enabled her to develop a unique perspective on beauty pageants. “I was 18 years old when I won Miss World 2000. The beauty pageant world gave me a step into the career I now stand on. It made me feel like a winner, it gave me the power to find my own confidence. There are many pageants now, that reduce women to just one thing. What we need to do, instead of questioning the women that participate in pageants, is create pageants that don’t put women down. Change the pageant, not the woman.”
During the panel, Priyanka gave her thoughts on how women are often pitted against one another. She explained, “The more I champion women in my own small way maybe I’ll be able to create a world where women run the show.” Priyanka believes that the root of the problem is that the fact that there are fewer opportunities for women, “I feel like, over time, because women had the lack of opportunities, we were pitted against each other. Because there were only five places a woman could be hired and so we were elbowing each other out to get to that one spot.”
When asked the question of where global beauty is going, Priyanka answered, “Traveling and meeting people of different ethnicities in different parts of the world is so important to expand our minds. And being curious about different cultures. It’s more than just seeing inclusivity on billboards, it’s actually getting to know different people and hear their stories. We need to remember that in the end, we are all humans that live in one little planet together. Priyanka also spoke about her path to marry in her 30’s. She shared, “I took choices in my life where my career mattered to me and I hadn’t met the right guy yet. I wasn’t going to settle because I have a biological clock.” Priyanka married Nick Jonas on December 1, 2018.