Priyanka Chopra's fans are upset with British TV host Andi Peters. The reason? During a segment on the show Good Morning Britain, Andi mispronounced Priyanka's name. In March, the anchor went to Madame Tussauds to talk about various stars who are honoured with their respective statues at the wax museum. While reporting to studio anchors Adil Ray and Charlotte Hawkins, Andi, who was standing next to Priyanka's statue was asked, “Who is that next to you? Who is that supposed to be?” To this, he replied, “Oh, this is Chia Chianca Chop Free?” On Wednesday, a fan page shared the throwback video on Instagram.
Naturally, Priyanka Chopra's fans expressed their outrage in the comment section. A user wrote, “Is a huge disrespect not only for the pronunciation because anyone can have a mistake, but here was not a mistake, is doing it on purpose.” Another fan added, “Nah the amount of preparation people have before going live on TV is insane so I have no idea on how he missed this…” Someone else stated, “Someone needs to tell Andy Peters at least Priyanka Chopra has earned her place in Madame Tussaud's because he hasn't.” A person asked, “She is Priyanka the world knows her who are you?” A comment read, “Used to like Andy - not anymore! That was really rude and it's not that hard to say her name at all!” A fan wrote, “Imagine being so out of touch? Just stand beside a statue of someone you know? Disrespectful.” Many simply exclaimed, “Disrespectful!” Several people viewed this as an act of racism and posted comments such as, “A brown Indian girl doing extremely well is not easy to digest for such low life Westerners.”
In case you have not already watched the viral video, check it out below:
While users continue to debate whether Andi Peters' mispronunciation of Priyanka Chopra's name has racial undertones, the actress has previously spoken about facing racism. This occurred when the NFL Network received racist feedback for using her song In My City in the Thursday Night Football theme. Speaking to CNN anchor Chris Wallace, Priyanka said, “NFL Network got a lot of tweets and stuff. Or, you know, things saying, ‘Who's she? Who's this person? And why should she be on American TV' and like, ‘football should be an American person,' it was just like, very confusing, because I'm, I was just an artist with a song that they liked.”
“It hits you every time. It hits you. All of it hits, criticism, the fact that, you know, my job requires me to be dissected, and you know, microscopely. Everything I say, my home, my family, everything is looked at. But that's the nature of the beast. And I've done it for 23 years now. What I'm not expecting is nature to change. You've got to start protecting yourself. And I started doing that many years ago. So yes, of course, it was hurtful. But I'm someone who does wear blinders. I'm not…and I believe in, you know, letting my work speak for itself. And the best shut down to people like that, who said that I didn't belong is to belong. And today, I have, you know, the number one series in the world on the show. And I'm sitting here talking to Chris Wallace, so who won?” Priyanka Chopra added.
On the work front, Priyanka Chopra will soon be seen in Ilya Naishuller's Heads of State.