Superstar Priyanka Chopra is in a happy place thanks to her web series Citadel receiving positive response across the world. During the promotions of the spy thriller, which features her alongside Richard Madden, the actress said that for the first time in her over two-decade-long career she received equal pay. Now, as a guest on the American talk show The View, Priyanka Chopra has shared how she initially did not believe that equal pay was a possibility and attributed the positive development to Amazon Studios chief Jennifer Salke's vision. Speaking about receiving equal pay for Citadel, Priyanka Chopra said: “Thank God. 23 years later.
But I do think – and I have talked about this a little bit – the head of film and TV for Amazon Prime is Jennifer Salke whose idea was Citadel. She came in five years ago and she wanted to build this global universe. I wonder if the head of the studio was not female, would this have been a different conversation? Would it have been a conversation because with her it wasn't. They [the team] went back and said, ‘They're playing co-leads, and should be paid the same.' She was like, ‘Yeah, it's only fair'.”
Sharing that she didn't even believe equal pay was a possibility before Citadel, Priyanka Chopra continued, “My cynical self was like, ‘No, it's never going to happen'. I am telling my agents – ‘You can ask for it, but, guys, I've done this for a long time'."
She added that this is why it is important for women to be in decision-making positions, “Because it changes other women's lives. After Citadel, every job I have done where I'm the co-lead, I've gotten parity. So, it did change my life. ”
Earlier, Priyanka Chopra revealed during an interview at the 2023 South by Southwest Film Festival with Jennifer Salke, the head of Amazon Studios, that she had finally received equal pay for her work on Citadel and that this was a first in her career. Priyanka acknowledged that her statement might land her in trouble depending on who was listening. She said, “I might get into trouble for saying this, depending on who's watching. I've been working in the entertainment industry for 22 years, and I have done 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. I'm laughing about this, but it's kind of nuts.”
Before that in an interview with BBC 100 Women, Priyanka Chopra spoke about pay parity and said, “It (the pay gap) is large, substantially large. And so many women still deal with that. I'm sure I will too if I worked with a male co-actor now in Bollywood.”
“I thought it was absolutely OK to sit for hours and hours on set, while my male co-actor just took his own time, and decided whenever he wanted to show up on set is when we would shoot,” she added about her working experience in Bollywood.
