A year after the birth of her first child, Malti, Priyanka Chopra has explained why she and Nick Jones chose to use a surrogate.
Gracing the cover of this month's British Vogue, Chopra was interviewed on her daughter, her new role as a mother, and her life with singer and Jonas Brothers band member Nick Jonas.
The pair were married in a lavish ceremony in India in 2018 that combined both Hindu and Christian traditions, before welcoming their first child together in January 2022.
Chopra, 40, announced the birth via a post on Instagram, which read: "We are overjoyed to confirm that we have welcomed a baby via surrogate. We respectfully ask for privacy during this special time as we focus on our family."
At the time, Chopra and Jonas, 30, received some backlash from netizens who accused the pair of "renting" a womb and "outsourcing" her pregnancy for vanity reasons, according to Buzzfeed.
The former Miss World 2000 winner - who hails from East India - had the chance to speak about this frustrating criticism in her Vogue cover.
While she stated that she wished to keep her medical information and history private, she did tell the magazine: "I had medical complications. This was a necessary step, and I'm so grateful I was in a position where I could do this. Our surrogate was so generous, kind, lovely, and funny, and she took care of this precious gift for us for six months.
"I've developed a tough hide when people talk about me," Chopra explained. "But it's so painful when they talk about my daughter. I'm like, 'Keep her out of it.'
"I know what it felt like to hold her little hands when they were trying to find her veins. So no, she's not going to be gossip. I've been really protective of this chapter of my life with my daughter. Because it's not about my life only. It's hers too."
As previously reported, Malti had arrived a whole trimester early. In her cover interview, the Baywatch actress recalled: "She was so small, smaller than my hand [...] Nick and I were both standing there as they intubated her. I don't know how they even found what they needed [in her tiny body] to intubate her.
"We spent every single day with her on my chest, on my husband's chest. I didn't know if she would make it or not," she added.
After becoming a mom, Chopra took a hiatus from acting, only appearing in one project in 2020 - a kids' film on Netflix called We Can Be Heroes. However, it seems she's set to return to acting soon, slated to appear in a rom-com called Love Again alongside Outlander's Sam Heughan (swoon) and Celine Dion, according to Collider.
Then, she'll also be appearing in Amazon Prime series Citadel with Game of Thrones star Richard Madden (another swoon!).