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When Priyanka Met Nick: A Love Story
First comes love, then comes marriage. Before Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas tie the knot on Saturday, here's an exclusive sneak peek at our January cover story.
The first time Nick Jonas met Priyanka Chopra, he got down on one knee.
Jonas tells me the story on a sunny afternoon in Las Vegas, in an expansive suite at the Wynn. He has just flown in to meet Chopra, who has been here a few days for a charity event. The engaged couple haven't seen each other in weeks not since a trip to India, where they will wed in a pink sandstone-and-marble palace in Rajasthan.
By some miracle of genetics (or dermatology), Jonas, 26, has the same fresh face that graced the cover of Tiger Beat ten years ago, but his once-wavy hair is now cropped short, and even black long sleeves cannot hide the small mountain ranges that are his biceps. Though their age difference has been a point of obsession in the press (Chopra, at 36, is ten years older), Jonas seems the more senior and serious of the two. He moves around with a quiet, clandestine intention, as though, in addition to ordering room service two turkey burgers, no bun she might be looking for his house slippers. ("I call him Old Man Jonas, Chopra says when I note this.)
Seated primly on the couch in a mustard-and-black floral sheath by Christian Dior and black heels, Chopra is chatty, exuberant and psychotically pretty. Sophia Loreninherheyday pretty. Take-her-to-a-Dodgers-game-and-you-will-end-up-in-the-owner's-box pretty. (That happened on their third date.)
Jonas uncorks a bottle of champagne and pours us mimosas. The bended-knee encounter took place at the Vanity Fair Oscars party last year, he explains. Jonas was hanging out at the bar, dressed in a velvet suit, a white rose tucked into his breast pocket. He noticed Chopra breezing through, in a long black sequined Michael Kors Collection dress.
"And I put my drink down, Jonas tells me, "get on one knee this is in front of a bunch of people and I say, You're real. Where have you been all my life?' Like, loud.
Nick and Priyanka were not perfect strangers. They'd been texting each other for months because well, because this is a 2018 love story. (More on the texting later.) Chopra had a car waiting and a flight to India to catch, but that didn't stop Jonas from suggesting a drink. "I looked at Anj (her manager, Anjula Acharia), Chopra says. "And I said, Five minutes.'
It would be almost a year and a half before Jonas proposed. Naturally, they would spend most of that time not seeing each other. Yes, Ralph Lauren invited them to attend the 2017 Met gala togethernot knowing anything about their months-long text flirtation. And yes, they met for a proper drink a week before the Met at the Carlyle hotel in New York. Chopra ended up inviting Jonas to her apartment that eveningeven though her mother was home watching Law & Order in her nightgown. (Introductions were made, and Jonas confirms that Chopra's mother, Madhu, was indeed wearing her nightgown.)
All along there were signs, chemistry, a mysterious familiarity building. Looking back, Chopra can pinpoint the moment she felt a subtle shift. She was on a date in L.A. with Jonas and he said, "I love the way you look at the world. I love the drive you have. "As a girl, I've never had a guy tell me, I like your ambition,' Chopra says. "It's always been the opposite.
PRIYANKA CHOPRA IS undoubtedly one of the biggest movie stars in India. She's acted in more
than 50 films, including India's first superhero franchise, Krrish. She played an autistic runaway in Barfi!, India's submission to the 2012 Academy Awards. For her portrayal of an exploited model in a 2008 drama about the Indian fashion industry called, simply, Fashion, she won a National Film AwardIndia's equivalent of an Oscar.
But movie star doesn't begin to convey Chopra's place in Indian culture. Having become famous at the age of seventeen, in 2000, when she was one of three women crowned Miss India, and then doubly famous later the same year when she was crowned Miss World, Chopra is something closer to a head of state, albeit one with a remarkably diverse portfolio.
Her production company, Purple Pebble Pictures, develops movies across India's regional film industries and in its various languages: Sikkimese, Punjabi, Hindi, English. She has a YouTube series in the works and has become something of a tech investor as well, with a stake in the dating and social media app Bumble, which she is helping to bring to India this fall. ("It's the idea of it that I love for India, she tells me. "It's empowering girls to take control of their futures. You want a career? Go online; pursue the person you want to meet. Choose the kind of guy you like.)
In recent years, Chopra has become well known in America thanks to the FBI drama
Quantico which made her the first Indian-born woman to lead a prime-time network show in the United States. Although Quantico was canceled this year after three seasons, Chopra most definitely was not. Come February she will star opposite Rebel Wilson in the rom-com send-up Isn't It Romantic.
Chopra, in other words, has done what no Indian superstar before her has managed: cross over into Hollywood. "High-profile people in the industry in India would be like, It's never happened before. It's not going to happen. You're wasting your time,' Acharia says. (By the way, Chopra is the only celebrity managed by Acharia, whose primary occupation is venture capitalist.)
At the news that Chopra was engaged to the youngest Jonas Brotherand when photos surfaced of the couple's roka engagement ceremony in Mumbai, showing the onetime teen idol in a kurta-pajamaa kind of mania broke out. Partly it was the seeming abruptness. Didn't they just start dating? Is he old enough to get married?
If anything, the attention in India was more intense. There Jonas has acquired a national nickname, a play on the Hindi word jiju, which means "brother-in-law or, more precisely, "sister's husband. As of this summer, in Indian newspaper headlines and across Indian social media, Jonas is now referred to as "National Jiju.
Chopra and Jonas own, by my count, six homes, spanning a distance from Mumbai to Mammoth, California. Two weeks before our lunch in Las Vegas, I meet Chopra at her penthouse in Lower Manhattan, with its wraparound views and its white fluffy rug, over which Diana, her tiny terrier-chihuahua, has free rein.
We're not here long. Chopra is starving. She alerts her security that we will be walking to a caf nearby. We take the elevator downstairs, where a swirl of staff appear and disappear. One security guard remains, hovering within a five-foot radius of Chopra at all times as we make our way uptown on foot. Compared with Mumbai, I remark, where she would be mobbed, New York must feel like a respite. Chopra responds by identifying paparazzi positioned in various spots along our route"There you go, she says, "there you gotheir telephoto lenses protruding from behind parked cars.
We get to the caf and settle into a table in the back. Soon a waiter delivers what can only be described as wooden slabs of deconstructed avocado toast. As we assemble our respective toasts, Chopra tells me about her childhood.
Both of her parents were doctors in the Indian Army. Her father, Ashok, was a surgeon. (He died of cancer in 2013.) Her mother, who now co-runs Chopra's film-production company, was a gynecologist. They met at a party in Bareilly, a city in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, and were married ten days later. Madhu jokes about her daughter's own fast engagement. "She's like, It's in your genes,' says Chopra.
When she was twelve, Chopra visited relatives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and was amazed that students didn't wear uniforms. She asked her mother to let her stay in America for high school.
"That was my teenage vanity, Chopra says, laughing. "I was like: I get to be cute? Girls are wearing makeup and their hair down. Land of the free, here I come!
She spent part of her ninth-grade year in Cedar Rapids, and the rest with relatives in Queens, New York. Tenth grade she spent with extended family in Indianapolis, Indiana; eleventh grade in Newton, Massachusetts. Her favorite city was New York. "Because it was Queens, she says. "So diverse, so fun. She discovered hip-hop. "I had braids. It was a whole thingpuffer jackets, I was in love with Tupac. I wore black for 20 days when he was killed.
She was less crazy about Newton, where she was subjected to racist taunts at school. ("Go back on the elephant you came on, she remembers. And "Oh, my God, do you smell the curry?) "It really marked the way I felt and my self-esteem. Chopra decided she'd had enough of the U.S. "I wanted to go back to the uniform.
Madhu barely recognized her daughter at the airport. "I sent her there a lanky, carefree tomboy, and what came back was a gorgeous female, Madhu tells me later. "From a chrysalis to a butterfly. The attention from boys would be so intense that Chopra's father installed iron bars on the windows of the family home. "The house looked like a fortress, Madhu remembers. ("A jail, Chopra says.)
One day, Chopra's brother Siddharth was paging through one of his mother's magazines when he happened upon an advertisement for the Miss India contest. "This little fellow, my son, all of nine years old, came into my room, Madhu remembers. "He said, Is Didi beautiful?' I said, I think so.' He said, Is she five-eight? I said yes. Is she seventeen?' I said yes. OK, then why don't you fill this out?' (Later, when I reach Siddharth, who is now a chef in Mumbai, he tells me that Chopra had taken over his bedroom. The Miss India idea was his plot to reclaim it. "I thought, I'll get my room back.)
Chopra was studying to become an engineerbut she begged to go to the preliminary Miss India competition in Delhi. "I remember the doors of this hotel opening, and these tall, lissome, gorgeous women walking outin my head, in slow motionand big tears started rolling down my face, Chopra says. "My mom said, Don't worry about how you look. Speak so that they listen to you. Have something to say.' She won.
She won the Miss World competition in London, tooat which point the film offers started pouring in. Chopra learned acting on set, by doing. "Life prepared me for it, she says. "All the moving around. I knew what cultural differences were. I knew that differences don't make us different. Differences make us interesting.
Chopra was ten years into her movie career when, in 2010, she was contacted by Acharia, who was riding a wave of success of her own and had found a business partner in music executive Jimmy Iovine. The two were looking for an Indian artist who could break into the American market. By chance, Acharia had seen Chopra in a spoof hip-hop video a few years earlier. Chopra agreed to a meeting.
Her first single, "In My City, made with will.i.am, was released as the official theme song for the NFL's 2013 Thursday Night Football season. The reaction was hostile. Social media erupted with a flood of racist comments ("Who is this Arab terrorist? and "She's not American. This is an American sport). "It took me back to being that sixteen-year-old girl again, says Chopra. She pauses. "I remember talking to my manager and saying, It will always be like this.'
So when, the following year, the ABC casting executive Keli Lee flew to Mumbai to persuade
Chopra to meet with her about Quantico, Chopra was hesitant. "The only thing I told her was: I don't want my ethnicity to lead the part that I play, Chopra says. "I want to have a job. I want to have a plot. I want to have a story. The night the show premiered, Chopra calmed her nerves the way she often does: She sat by the pool of her Los Angeles hotel in a bikini, with a Bellini in hand. "Bikini Bellinis make me calm, she says. "It's my happy place. Quantico blew up and was ultimately broadcast in 64 countries during its first season.
Never, during all that time, had Chopra allowed herself to be photographed with a boyfriend. "I've had that rule my whole life, she says. "Never publicly acknowledge a relationship. Ever. But when I bring up Jonas, Chopra covers her face with her hands. She visibly melts. "What is happening? I've not known myself like this, she says. "This guy turned me into such a girl! If I could blush, I'd be tomato red right now.
Cut back to Vegas, where Chopra and Jonas have now unearthed and reviewed the electronic record of their courtship.
"It was Nick who sent the first message, Chopra says.
Jonas confirms this, deadpan. He'd sent a text to Graham Rogers, Chopra's costar on Quantico: " Priyanka. Is. Wow.' Jonas lets the words hang. "That's not the way I talk.
Next was a direct message from Jonas to Chopra on Twitter: "I'm hearing from a few mutual friends that we should meet. I ask for the date. "September 8, 2016, Jonas says. "We checked this morning. He goes on: "She responded day of with a message that said, My team can read this. Why don't you just text me.' (Here Chopra erupts, like she's cheering at the Super Bowl: "Boy got the number!)
They text back and forth, an epic correspondence"friendly with an eye toward flirtation, Jonas says. Then came the Oscars drink. Then the Carlyle and Chopra's apartment. "We hung out for a couple of hours, Chopra says. "He patted my back before he left.
"There was no kiss. There was nothing, Jonas confirms.
"There was a back pat, Chopra says, with a look of pure incredulity on her face.
"She's still upset about that.
Chopra demonstrates the platonic pat on Jonas's back.
"Your mom was in the house! Jonas says. "I thought it was a respectful first night.
"It was too respectful if you ask me.
They had an incredible time at the Met and the after-parties. Later, I call Nick's brother Joe Jonas, who was also there with his fiance, the actor Sophie Turner. "I think she kind of knocked him off his feet. He was just this little puppy dog, Joe tells me. Joe still has a photo he took of Nick at the end of the night, at the Carlyle: "He's sitting on the floor. And Sophie and I were just laughing at him.
We're like, Look at this little smitten, drunk kid right now.
Jonas and Chopra didn't see each other for an entire year after that. Not until the next Met gala, in fact, where, oddly, they ran into each other on the red carpet. This, apparently, was the pivotal point when timing began to work in their favor. In Los Angeles later that month, Jonas invited Chopra to a live performance of Beauty and the Beast. They met at the Chateau Marmont. Jonas: "She walks into the Chateau, and I feel an overwhelming sense of peace and understanding about this next chapter of my life. The next night, they went to the Dodgers game. The following morning, Jonas called his mother and informed her that he was going to marry Chopra. "This is date three, Chopra says.
Jonas proposed in Crete. As far as Chopra knew, it was to be a birthday trip. Jonas waited until after midnight, so that future engagement anniversaries would not coincide with her birthday celebrations. He had the ring with him, having shut down a Tiffany & Co. in London to pick it out with his brothers a few weeks earlier.
"I got down on one knee, again, and I said: Will you make me the happiest man in the world and marry me? Jonas says. "No jokeshe took about 45 seconds. Forty-five seconds of silence. (Chopra says she was speechless.) Jonas pressed on. "I'm going to put this ring on your finger now unless you have any objections.
The roka took place in August. "It was such an incredible coming-together of two really ancient cultures and religions, Chopra says. Jonas's father, a pastor, said a prayer. A Hindi priest led blessings. "Nick did the Hindu prayers, Chopra says. "The prayers are in Sanskrit. Even I can't say them. But he did it in Sanskrit. The Indians were so impressed with their National Jiju.
Chopra and Jonas are drawing up long-term plans. They will still do what they've done thus far, we can assume, but philanthropy will become an even bigger focus. We can also assume they will have children, possibly several. "My ultimate dream is to have kids, Chopra has said in the past. "As many as I can.
First, Jonas and Chopra will marry. They will have two ceremoniesa traditional Indian wedding and a Christian service officiated by Jonas's fathereach held in different spots at the palace in Rajasthan.
The three-day extravaganza promises to be over the top. "People will need vacations after this wedding, Chopra says. It will be, in tone, not unlike Jonas's description of the roka: "Two very different cultures and religious backgrounds, and the beauty of it was, there was so much love and acceptance for our side. "Nick's mother thinks she was Indian in a past life, Chopra adds. "She rocks a sari.
Jonas will dress like royalty, as is customaryturban, swordand he'll ride in on a horse.
"Are you comfortable on a horse? it suddenly occurs to Chopra to ask.
"I am, Jonas says. "I can't wait.
Jonas and Chopra will walk around a fire seven times, once for each of the seven lifetimes they will spend together. Truth be told, Jonas is already of the opinion that they're on their third lifetime together, possibly even their fourth. Either way, he says, "I'll take seven more.
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