Priyanka Chopra | Biography | From Miss World to A-List Actress

Priyanka Chopra has established herself as a Hollywood starlet, but America wasn't always so friendly to the actress back in her teens. Priyanka first moved to the United States when she was 13. Although she fell in love with American idols like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Tupac Shakur, her peers at school bullied her relentlessly due to her race and accent. Eventually, enough was enough, and Priyanka returned to India set on a path to become an engineer. As fate would have it, her mother enrolled her in a few local beauty pageants, which would take her career in a different direction. And following her win as Miss India World, her parents had to bar up their house because the male suitors wouldn't stop showing up uninvited. What's going on guys and girls, it's Kara. Last week we dropped a house tour on Priyanka and her hubby Nick Jonas and you guys seemed to like it, so I thought I would follow up with a more in depth look at Priyanka's come up story with a full biography. We've dropped a few of these on this channel including one on Will Smith and another on Kelly Rowlands. If you guys like these videos be sure to hit that like button, subscribe if you're new, and I'll see you all after the intro. It's a very big thing for India to have a Miss World from India and it's very important for them to understand who we are and when they start doing that after the past minutes that we've had, we've become sort of like role models for them and they listen. Priyanka Chopra was born on July 18th, 1982 in Jamshedpur, Bihar which is now an area known as Jharkhand. Her parents Ashok and Madhu Chopra were both doctors in the Indian Army which resulted in the family relocating time and time again with young Priyanka never staying in one place for long. She has a younger bro Siddharth who is 7 years her junior and 3 cousins all with the last name Chopra who are actresses in Bollywood films. Growing up, young Priyanka attended all girls school but from a young age was already one who stood out from the pack. I used to I got really bullied when I was in school in America so that crushed my spirit a little bit more. When I was a teenager I used to have like I was a tomboy so I had scars and like I was always falling on my knees. She grew up surrounded by army kids and they all lived in bunkers. They would spend their spare time running around outdoors getting messy. Then at the age of 12 Priyanka took a chance on seeing more of the world. She left her family in India to study in the United States living with her aunt and uncle in Newton, Massachusetts. Again, Priyanka was on the move as her aunt and uncle also travelled for work. During her 3 years in America she lived in Boston, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Queens, New York and briefly in BC, Canada. There were quite a few things she quickly fell in love with in America, one being Sarah Michelle Gellar's hit show Buffy My favorite was Buffy and like 90210 and like growing up with that stuff. Which for those who are following my personal channel would know I too am a super fan. I know my transcripts are a little you burned down the gym. You're not seeing the big picture here. I mean that gym was full of asbestos. There were other interests including a love for rap and her favorite artist was Tupac He's a rapper. When I was in school he was shot and killed. In school she participated in several theater productions and studied western classical music, choral singing and Indian dance. She described herself as being a gawky teenager and was the only Indian girl at the western schools. One girl in particular named Janine would utter phrases like, Girls are mean in school. Everyone has had that one girl who makes your life miserable when you're in high school especially. So I think she just found what would affect me and what would hurt me to wind me up and just said what would hurt me. After completing the 10th grade she had enough and decided to move back home. Her plan at the time was to become a software engineer or a criminal psychologist. I didn't even know that acting could be a serious profession because I was that Indian girl you know who sits front bench, always knows the answer, comes first in class, honors student. During this time she attended the army public school in Bareilly and despite the strict schooling she has fond memories and now regards it as home. When it came time to apply for a scholarship her mother had other plans and sent professionally shot photos to a local May Queen beauty contest where she won. Then she very sheepishly came to me you know I sent those pictures and I was like how could you send those pictures it was so ugly and she's like you got a call. She then went on to the Miss India pageant and Priyanka ended up winning that one as well. Well if I was to choose one of these very three difficult choices I think I would go for a great Indian sportsman. She was enrolled at Jai Hind College in Mumbai now studying aeronautical engineering but her newfound fame was opening so many doors that she had to put her studies on hold. I wanted to be in NASA, build planes and it's so ironic that I just literally live in one now. She began to receive offers to appear in movies, she was travelling the country and back home suitors would show up at her parents home on the regular. So much so that they had to put bars up on the doors and windows for her protection. Those be some hungry suitors. Priyanka went on to the Miss World pageant where she was crowned Miss World 2000 and Miss World Continental Queen of Beauty Asia and Oceania at the Millennium Dome London. I'd never expected that. I went in there thinking that I should at least come in the top few but winning it was out of the question. Chopra was the 5th Indian contestant to win Miss World and the 4th to do so in 7 years. She first tried her acting in the 2000 low budget film Goodnight Princess. This fell through due to lack of funding. The next year she picked up more work in the 2002 films Tommy Zan and Jeet Born to Win. When she first started acting she wanted to quit but she didn't know what to do or say but eventually these would be fears she would overcome. I love my job. I'm so blessed to wake up every morning and say yes I'm going to work. In 2003 she appeared in her first Bollywood film The Hero Love Story of a Spy. That same year she appeared in Andaz and this kicked off a long string of films, appearing in as many as 5 or 6 a year. Inspired by her father who had been extremely musically inclined, she also took up singing. Priyanka quickly climbed through the ranks, becoming one of India's highest paid and most popular and credited as the most talented celebrities. She would go on to receive numerous awards both in India and abroad. It was in 2015 that Hollywood finally took notice and ABC approached Priyanka with a full slate of scripts they had in development. They allowed her to choose which project she wanted to star in, and thus began her journey to transition from Bollywood star to Hollywood leading lady and a household name. Aside from Baywatch, Priyanka starred as Alex Parrish in the ABC thriller series Quantico from 2015 to 2018. These days she's happily married to Nick Jonas and the happy couple resides in Los Angeles. As for where does she go from here, well Priyanka has already done it all and shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. And if you want to see where she kicks up her feet with her hubby, be sure to check out our recent house tour video we dropped for you guys. Thanks for tuning in, don't forget to follow me on Instagram and let me know what videos you want to see next. I'll see you all soon. Bye!