Priyanka Chopra may be a relatively new face in the American market, and younger Americans may know her more as "Mrs. Nick Jonas" than anything else. But Chopra has been a worldwide star for just as long as Jonas and isn't afraid to remind people.
Recently, Australian reporter Peter Ford questioned what qualified Chopra to announce the Oscar Nominations. He quickly got his answer - and told to do better... and that was beforeChopra herself spoke up.
The reporter's initial tweet about Chopra and Jonas as presenters is below. Note Mr. Ford's complaint is they have not contributed to "the movies" and makes no mention of "Hollywood."
Pin that mentally. It'll be important later.
The Aussie reporter questioned whether Chopra or Jonas had contributed enough "to the movies" to warrant being asked to present the nominations. While Nick's contribution to cinema is admittedly less than his contribution to music, Chopra is a very different story.
Priyanka Chopra is credited in over 70 films.
She is arguably one of the most famous actresses world-wide, considered a Bollywood legend (India has the third largest film market in the world, by the way) and that's to say nothing of her work in media other than film or behind the camera.
Also her film White Tiger is nominated for an Oscar this year, so her work is literally on the list she was tasked with reading from.
Ford got schooled in his own comments section pretty quickly.
But Ford doubled down on his insistence Chopra was unqualified.
And that's when Priyanka Chopra decided to speak up for herself or more accurately, scroll for herself. Rather than list her credits, she decided to lean into the old addage that a picture was worth a thousand words and hit him with a scrolling video.
For his adept consideration...
Amazingly (or unsurprisingly, depending on how you look at it) Ford tripled-down on insisting world-famous, world-renown and literally-nominated-at-the-Oscars-this-year actress Priyanka Chopra was somehow unqualified to (*checks notes*) read a list from a teleprompter.
As people educated him in the comments of both his and Priyanka's tweets, the journalist brushed aside their facts, accused people of being racist towards him and continued to insist only Hollywood mattered.
And then he responded to Priyanka directly.
So let's recap:
An Australian reporter insisted Piyanka Chopra, an actress whose work was nominated in this year's Oscars, was not qualified to read the nominations for this year's Oscars.
The basis for his insistence is she had not done enough work in Hollywood, the American film market. The fact she has done decades of work on film around the world is irrelevant to him.
The Oscars are a world film market awards show, Chopra has multiple Hollywood credits ... and also she is nominated for an Oscar this year.
After being educated on these points, by fans Ford doubled down.
After Priyanka Chopra herself spoke up, Ford tripled-down the Oscar-Nominated actress was not qualified to read the Oscar noms, going so far as to tell Chopra directly none of the facts changed his mind.
As far as Twitter is concerned, all Ford did was embarrass himself and his profession.
Ford set his account to private temporarily in an attempt to avoid people's responses. We don't know if Chopra will say anything further, though we doubt it.
She is busy enjoying a storied career both in and out of Hollywood, and if we're honest, her scroll was a bit of a mic drop moment.
