Priyanka Chopra Says Her Botched Nose Procedure Made Her Depressed: "It Was A Dark Phase"

Priyanka Chopra, 40, revealed this past week that she was so unhappy with her nose procedure in the early 2000s that she fell into a "deep depression." "It was a dark phase,” the actress tells Howard Stern. 

Chopra says she decided to undergo the procedure after winning the title of Miss World 2000. Doctors recommended she remove a polyp in her nasal cavity, and Chopra claims the surgeon shaved too much off the bridge of her nose, causing it to collapse. The incident resulted in her getting fired from three movies. "I had been signed for all these great movies, and this thing happens, my face looks completely different and I fell into a deep, deep depression," she admitted.

Her father, a doctor, urged Chopra to get a surgical correction. He was present at her procedure and held her hand the whole time, and it was thanks to him that she was able to regain her confidence. "He held my hands through it and helped me build back my confidence," the Love Again star recalled.

This is not the first time Chopra has discussed the surgery. In her 2021 memoir Unfinished, the Bollywood star remembered a time when her self-esteem would never "recover from the blow." Producers were even urging her to get more work done so that she could book more gigs. “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,” she wrote. “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.”

Chopra decided not to listen to her manager’s advice and instead accepted her own looks. “If I looked like other ‘classically beautiful’ girls, then I wouldn’t stand out, and more important, I wouldn’t be me,” she added.

She continued, “Now when I look in the mirror, I am no longer surprised; I’ve made peace with this slightly different me … I’m just like everyone else: I look at myself in the mirror and think maybe I can lose a little weight; I think maybe I can work out a little more. But I’m also content. This is my face. This is my body. I might be flawed, but I am me.”

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