Photo: Fred Duval / Shutterstock & Instagram
By John Sundholm — Written on Jan 20, 2023
Intense interest in every detail of celebrities' lives is just part of being a star, and no celebrity news generates quite as much interest as a baby announcement.
But for actress Priyanka Chopra-Jonas, 40, and Jonas Brothers singer Nick Jonas, 30, the announcement of their baby daughter Malti's January 15, 2022 birth was anything but joyous.
Chopra was subjected to heated criticism and torrents of hateful trolling for her choice to have Malti via surrogacy.
Now, in a new profile in British Vogue, the Indian star of films like "Baywatch" and "The Matrix Resurrections" is addressing the backlash.
Priyanka Chopra is no longer putting up with speculation about her baby girl.
After Malti's harrowing premature birth, she has some pointed words for those criticizing her surrogacy, and a resolve to not tolerate intrusive gossip about her baby.
Chopra revealed to British Vogue that Malti was born extremely premature, an entire trimester early, and barely survived her time in the neonatal intensive care unit.
Chopra described the experience of being "in the OR [operating room] when she came out," going on to say of Malti, "she was so small, smaller than my hand."
Malti spent three months in the intensive care units at Rady Children’s Hospital in La Jolla, California and Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai hospitals.
Malti had to be intubated, a process that left Chopra mystified.
As she told British Vogue, "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.”
Malti's situation was so dire that Chopra and Jonas feared the worst. "We spent every single day with her on my chest, on my husband’s chest," she said. "I didn’t know if she would make it or not."
The announcement of Malti's birth sparked heated criticism.
Many accused Chopra of "renting" a uterus because she was not willing to endure pregnancy and childbirth.
Chopra's January 2022 Instagram post about Malti's birth immediately drew torrents of angry comments.
People accused Chopra of "outsourcing" pregnancy because she was unwilling to take time off of work to have a baby and didn't want to risk ruining her figure.
Chopra's surrogacy choice soon got pulled into the wider debate about surrogacy on social media among those who feel it is an exploitative practice reliant upon impoverished women willing to "sell their uteruses."
Critics also say surrogacy further stigmatizes adoption and perpetuates the neglect adoptable children experience—a criticism that was also leveled at Chopra.
But as many have noted, white celebrities who have used surrogates, like actress Rebel Wilson and singer Grimes, seem not to have been subjected to such angry backlash—at least not to the level Chopra has.
In her British Vogue interview, Priyanka Chopra-Jonas called out trolls and critics.
She hit back at those invading her privacy and talking about her baby Malti, telling them to "keep her out of it."
At 40 years of age, Chopra would be considered a high-risk "geriatric pregnancy" and much more prone to dangerous complications, a common reason for women to choose surrogacy.
Chopra and Jonas have chosen not to comment on their situation previously, but Chopra did not mince words when asked by British Vogue about her critics' invasive speculation about her surrogacy.
"You don’t know me," she told the magazine. “You don’t know what I’ve been through."
"And just because I don’t want to make my medical history, or my daughter’s, public doesn’t give you the right to make up whatever the reasons were."
But while Chopra says she's "developed a tough hide" for gossip and trolling, baby Malti is another story—and she and Jonas are not willing to tolerate Malti being used in trolls' ridicule.
"I’m like, ‘Keep her out of it,'" Chopra told British Vogue. "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."
Chopra's British Vogue interview has of course restarted criticism about her surrogacy circulating on social media all over again.
Being a product for public consumption is of course part of being famous, for better or worse.
Still, beneath the celebrity and glamour are human beings, and there are parts of the human experience no amount of fame or money can insulate us from.
Some things should be allowed to stay private, even when you live in the public eye.
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John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.