Priyanka Chopra recently opened up about her pageantry journey and said that she really looked up to Aishwarya Rai and Sushmita Sen.

Priyanka Chopra recently heaped praise on Aishwarya Rai and Sushmita Sen.

Actor Priyanka Chopra recently expressed admiration for icons Aishwarya Rai and Sushmita Sen, crediting them for their early success on the global stage. Aishwarya scripted history by becoming Miss World in 1994, while Sushmita was crowned the first Indian Miss Universe in the same year. In a recent episode of the “Read The Room” podcast with Cavanaugh James, Priyanka praised them, while discussing how she never harboured aspirations of entering beauty pageants herself. Nonetheless, Priyanka was crowned the winner at the Miss World 2000 beauty pageant.

The actor said, “In my country, pageants are really revered, they’re really looked up to, especially the Miss India pageant and the Miss World pageant. There was like a decade, winners back to back from my country. I was interested when India participated and our family would watch, it was really fun.”

Priyanka, however, said that she never wanted to pursue pageantry and added, “I remember, 1993 or 1994, Miss Universe and Miss World Aishwarya Rai and Sushmita Sen were both from India and I had the little snippets from the newspapers, in like a collage in my room. It wasn’t like I wanted to be them, I was just like ‘wow, look at these young women, they are doing so well on a global scale.’ So I was always curious about that, but I never wanted to go after it. So, when I was thrown into it, I really believed in destiny’s child and I don’t fight it.”

After her successful stint in the pageant world, Priyanka moved to films and made her debut with the Tamil movie Thamizhan. She is currently shooting for the film Heads of State opposite Idris Elba and John Cena.