Priyanka Chopra Opens up About ‘Horrifying’ Botched Nose Surgery That Left Her Looking ‘Completely Different’

Priyanka Chopra is opening up about a botched nasal surgery that dealt her self-esteem a blow from which she feared she would never recover. The actress, 38, gave a candid recollection of how a routine surgery went wrong in her first book, Unfinished: A Memoir, sharing that the unfortunate sequence of events began in 2001, a year after being crowned Miss World.

Suffering from what she described as a “lingering head cold,” Chopra wrote her symptoms off at first before she began having problems breathing, according to Entertainment Tonight. Visiting a doctor for help, Chopra was diagnosed with a nasal polyp. After she was told she would need surgery to remove the polyp, Chopra wrote she understood it would be a “pretty routine procedure” going in. It was during that surgery, however, that the doctor went too far.

“While shaving off the polyp, the doctor also accidentally shaved the bridge of my nose and the bridge collapsed,” Chopra wrote, “When it was time to remove the bandages and the condition of my nose was revealed, Mom and I were horrified.” She continued that her original nose was “gone,” and her face looked “completely different.”

Chopra struggled with her new appearance, which she said didn’t look how she had always seen herself. “Every time I looked in the mirror, a stranger looked back at me,” she recalled. “I didn’t think my sense of self or my self-esteem would ever recover from the blow.” It didn’t help that people began accusing her of getting plastic surgery after she debuted the new look.

Over the next 20 years, Chopra said she has undergone a number of corrective surgeries to “normalize” her appearance but has overall come to accept what she looks like. “While it took a few years … I’ve gotten accustomed to this face. Now when I look in the mirror, I am no longer surprised; I’ve made peace with this slightly different me,” she shared. “This is my face. This is my body. I might be flawed, but I am me.”

The former beauty queen, married to Nick Jonas, took to Instagram Tuesday after the release of her book to share why she chose to write Unfinished, explaining that she initially penned the book during the “vulnerable time” at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis when she was forced to stop everything for the first time in years. “I got really honest with myself and with my writing,” she said. “And I hope all of you really give this first-time author a chance and give my book a chance and read it with an open mind and get to know me as a person.”