Priyanka Chopra Jonas says she 'cried to my husband' after being told she's not 'sample size'

Priyanka Chopra Jonas shared that she recently cried after being told she's "not sample size."

Speaking candidly during a conversation with Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke at the kickoff of the 2023 South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival on Friday, the Quantico alum, 40, spoke about the various things she's been told "that are difficult to hear" throughout her career, including criticism of her body.

"In my job, the pressure is so intense you can't really show the chinks in your armor," she said during the panel, People reported. "Someone told me yesterday that 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 that I'm not sample size. And that's a problem, apparently, and most of us are not, and sample size is size 2."

The actress, who has a 1-year-old daughter with husband Nick Jonas, went on to speak out about being picked apart as a woman.

"And those pressures — it's inexplicable. I can't explain how it feels when you are sitting down on your couch and you just feel the world coming at you because people have forgotten that you are human," she continued, adding that sometimes people can come at her with "the meanest and nastiest things not just about me, about my child, about my family members."

The star also shared how her loved ones help her deal with such criticism.

"I think what you have to do is surround yourself with people who love you, and surround yourself with people who care about you, and not about what you can bring to the table and not about what you can do for me," she said. "People who want to see you smile and be enriched. It doesn't have to be a room full of people — I can count them on my hands."

The Citadel star has shared in the past about how she "always felt pressure" to be "perfect" and "skinny, noting that it took time for her to become comfortable her with natural skin and hair texture. But ultimately, the former Miss World says she believes she found a strong sense of self-worth by building confidence that "has nothing to do with my body." Still, it's a challenge to disregard the critics.

"Well, I won't lie that I don't get affected by it," Chopra Jonas previously told Yahoo Life. "My body has changed as I've gotten older, just as everyone's body does, and I've had to adapt mentally as well with like, OK, this is what it looks like now, this is what I look like now, it's alright, and catering to my now body and not my 10- or 20-years-ago body."

She went on to say that she found it "very crucial" that she built self-esteem by contributing to the world around her, focusing on "what you bring to the table outside of what you look like."

"I always think about, how am I contributing? What is my purpose? Am I doing good with the tasks that I've been given for the day? I try to be myopic about feeling good about other things, even on days that I don't feel the best about my body, and I work toward whatever makes me happy at that time," she shared.

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