Priyanka Chopra was considered "too dark" to be crowned Miss India

It was only time till a book on PeeCee came out.

Titled, Priyanka Chopra: The Incredible Story of a Global Bollywood Star, the book recalls the moment the jury was deliberating who to crown Femina Miss India World 2000 jury and one jury member was not in favour of the Quantico star due to her skin tone.

According to one of the mentors of the contestants on the show Pradeep Guha, “Not everybody in the jury was initially in favour of her. One person mentioned she’s too dark,” he said without naming the jury member.

"I said, ‘Yaar come on — look at South American girls. They keep winning and some of them are pretty dark as are all the girls from Africa. So I said what are you talking about?’ I was always very certain about her and as I said this woman never made a mistake twice," the mentor is quoted in the biography.

And Pradeep had no doubts about PeeCee. "She kind of always improved on herself day on day. I knew that she would give in 200 per cent if she gets in."

Although he says Priyanka was not the "obvious choice" for the jury members, she still left an impression on him. "I think she needed a little more confidence. I think she wasn’t quite sure initially whether this was the thing she wanted to do. She came in a bit tentatively. By the time the contest started, she seemed a lot more collected and definitely more confident of herself."

The then 17-year-old who hails from Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh won the title and emerged as the runner-up – Femina Miss India World 2000.

Though it's 2018 now, the actor in a recent interview disclosed that she was refused a role in Hollywood due to her skin tone.

"It happened last year. I was out for a movie, and somebody [from the studio] called one of my agents and said, ‘She’s the wrong—what word did they used?—‘physicality.’ So in my defense as an actor, I’m like, ‘Do I need to be skinnier? Do I need to get in shape? Do I need to have abs?’ Like, what does ‘wrong physicality’ mean?"

Chopra pauses. "And then my agent broke it down for me. Like, ‘I think, Priy, they meant that they wanted someone who’s not brown.’ It affected me."

Priyanka Chopra is now one of the most recognisable faces in the world, has multiple Hollywood projects to prove it and has definitely put Bollywood on the map.