Priyanka Chopra Jonas Said It Took 22 Years for Her to Get Equal Pay

Priyanka Chopra Jonas has the receipts, literally. In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter at South by Southwest, the superstar (and new mom) revealed that after over two decades in the entertainment industry, spanning more than 70 films and two hit TV shows, her latest project, Prime Video's Citadel with Richard Madden, is the very first time that she's achieved equal pay with her male lead.

“I might get into trouble for [saying this], depends on who’s watching,” she said. “I’ve been working in the entertainment industry for now 22 years, and I have done about almost 70-plus features and two TV shows. But when I did Citadel, it was the first time in my career that I had pay parity.”

Though she explained it all with a laugh, there was no denying the eyebrow-raising news. She went on to say that even though she's a veteran in the entertainment industry by now, she was still shocked that Amazon was so straightforward with how much she'd be paid in comparison to Madden.

“I’m laughing about this, but it’s kind of nuts,” she said. “I put in the same amount of investment and work, but I get paid much less. But the ease in which Amazon Studios said, ‘That’s what you deserve, you are co-leads, that’s just fair,’ and I was like, ‘You’re right, it’s fair.’ And I wonder: Did that happen because there are very few female decision-makers in Hollywood? Would that have been a different conversation if a woman didn’t make that decision? Those are not conversations that happened very easily.”

Citadel premieres on Prime Video April 28. In addition to Madden and Chopra Jonas, the series stars Stanley Tucci. 

After speaking about the pay disparities that she's had to endure, she touched on being body-shamed, something else that she's had to encounter that most of her male co-stars probably haven't.

“I’ve been told many things that are difficult to hear,” she said. “I arrive feeling crappy because somebody told me yesterday I wasn’t ‘sample sized.’ I was hurt and I discussed it with my family and I cried to my husband and my team and I felt really bad about the fact I’m not sample-sized and that that’s a problem, apparently. Most of us are not. ‘Sample-sized’ is a size 2.”