Priyanka Chopra has never fully explained why she chose surrogacy. For years the question followed her, in interviews, and in comment sections. She deflected. She kept it private.
She’s ready now.
In a new cover interview with Marie Claire, Chopra opened up about what she went through before her daughter Malti Marie Chopra Jonas was born in January 2022.
“Our daughter was very coveted and very desired because I had a really tough time with pregnancies,” Chopra told Marie Claire. “She’s my miracle baby, so everything just stopped when she was born.”
What Did Priyanka Chopra Revealed About Her Pregnancy Struggles?
Chopra did not detail the specific nature of her pregnancy difficulties in the Marie Claire interview.
The weight of what she described, years of trying, repeated hardship, and ultimately surrogacy as the path forward, makes clear that the decision was not made lightly or casually.
On Jay Shetty’s podcast earlier this year, she went further:
“The whole thing was tough because our journey to Malti was itself rough. I don’t know whether I am ready to talk about it, but it was very hard on me, and she is a miracle baby as she was my only hope at that time to be able to have a baby.”
When doctors told her that Malti would be arriving at just 27 weeks, a full trimester early, Chopra shut down completely:
“I remember sitting in front of our fireplace at our house for at least nine hours. And for someone who is always so solution-oriented, I didn’t have any thought in my brain.”
Her husband Nick Jonas found her there and drove her to the hospital.
Malti Marie’s Birth And Her 110 Days In The NICU
Malti was born at 27 weeks weighing 1 pound and 11 ounces. She was purple at birth.
The NICU nurses’ fingers were too large for her tiny mouth. Chopra described standing in that room feeling completely numb, unable to process what was happening.
“It was just really intense,” she said. “She was purple. The NICU nurses’ little fingers were too big for her mouth. How they intubated her was… I still see that image.”
Malti spent 110 days in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit fighting for her life.
For those 110 days, Priyanka and Nick reorganized everything around her. They stopped working.
They were at the hospital every single day, doing shifts so that Malti could have continuous skin-to-skin contact with one of her parents. Nick sang to her softly. Priyanka recited mantras.
Only one parent was allowed in the NICU at a time. “She cried the first time,” Chopra recalled. “It was like a cat. That’s all we got.”
The first time Chopra held her daughter against her chest she felt Malti’s fingers on her skin. “She was so tiny that her fingers felt like butterflies on me,” she said. “And in that moment I was like, I will go to the ends of the world to protect you.”
How Priyanka Chopra Was Forced To Announce Malti’s Birth
The family had planned to share the news of Malti’s arrival on their own terms, when they were ready, when they knew she was going to be okay. That choice was taken from them.
The birth leaked. Chopra received a message warning her that the news was going to be published whether she announced it or not,
“We got a text saying that her birth is going to be put out by the papers,” she said. “That if we don’t, they are going to in three hours. So we were kind of forced into announcing her birth. We wanted to hold onto our own narrative of it. We weren’t ready because we didn’t know what would happen with her or how she would be.”
They announced the birth of their daughter while she was still in critical condition in the NICU. The statement they released at the time asked for privacy.
How Did Malti Changed Everything For Priyanka Chopra?
Malti came home after 110 days. Chopra described the moment her family gathered at the mandir in their home, in front of a large Shiv Ji murti, and sat together in gratitude.
“That was the first time I wept, not out of fear, but out of gratitude,” she said. “Gratitude that she survived, that she was home, that she chose us, and that we were able to make it happen.”
Today Malti is four years old. Chopra describes her as a natural performer, already telling jokes in the middle of a room, singing at the top of her voice, surprising her mother every single day.
“It’s such a wonder to me that she’s this human being who has so much of me, my husband, her grandparents, her ascendants, and every day she’s a surprise,” Chopra said. “She’s the greatest gift of my life. All my priorities have changed. Everything starts and ends with her.”
Why Priyanka Chopra Says She Lives In Constant Fear For Her Daughter
Even now, four years later, Chopra describes living with a specific anxiety that she believes only parents of premature babies truly understand.
“I think it’s a preemie mom or a NICU mom thing, but I’m still in constant fear,” she told Marie Claire.
“When she’s not right by my side or she’s at school or when I’m in a different country, it’s this feeling that your heart is running outside of your body.”
Chopra recently starred in The Bluff, which premiered on Amazon Prime Video on February 25.
She plays Bloody Mary, a former pirate who will do anything to protect her child.
She has said the role drew directly from her own lived experience, from what she calls a “protective rage” that became part of her after Malti was born.
The judgment Chopra faced after choosing surrogacy was real and public. People had opinions. They speculated.
Now she puts that behind her.
