Priyanka Chopra is shedding light on her dating life prior to marrying her now husband, Nick Jonas.

During a guest appearance on Dax Shepard's podcast, Armchair Expert, the Quantico star speaks candidly about her past relationships and the moment she met and began a romance with Jonas.

"I was in a tumultuous relationship at that time. This is '16. And we had common friends who didn't want me to be in my relationship and were like, 'Oh, [Nick is] single too. He's really not with that girl, but he is.' It was complicated on both our ends," Chopra tells Shepard. "His brother loves Quantico. Kevin loves network TV, and I love network TV. And I'm really glad he did, because he pointed at me on a billboard, and he was like, 'You should call her.' And so, he had a few people being like, 'Call her.' So he just DM'd me. And I was like, 'Why don't you text me, because my social team can read these messages.' And he was like, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, you just wanted to give me your number.' I kinda did. And I didn't wanna admit it at that time, because I was in a relationship."

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Chopra reveals that she would often get into "long, long relationships … back to back to back to back." When Jonas first messaged her, she says, "I was at the end of my last long relationship before Nick. So I didn't want to engage as much at that time. I was also, like, 35; Nick was 25. I really put a stop on it in a way, because I judged the book by the cover. I was like, 'I wanna settle down. I have been there and done the fun dating things.' … I was ready to get serious and not realizing my husband is actually a 70-year-old man stuck in a 30-year-old's body."

Though they first began communicating in 2016, it wasn't until May of 2018 that they had their first date (they would get engaged and married later that same year)—though they did famously pose for photos together at the 2017 Met Gala.

"We kept in touch for those two years; like, random texts here and there," Chopra says. "We went to the Met Gala together in [2017], because we were both single-ish, and we were both going with Ralph Lauren and they said, 'You know, we have sort of couples. Would you like to just go together?' Both of us said yes."

She fondly recalls Jonas behaving like "a gentleman" toward her at the ceremony, with the singer not leaving her side for the entire night during the post-carpet party.

Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas at the Met Gala.

Still, there would be some time before they decided to make it official.

"In relationships, I kept making the same mistakes. I was with similar guys [who were] a little bit narcissistic. I just needed to figure out what about me evoked that. Like, why did I attract it?" Chopra says. "A lot of the patterns in my relationships was my feeling gaslit. I gave that kind of power to the people that I was with, where I was like, 'You come first.' … I always looked for someone who I could be vulnerable with, never realizing my vulnerability gave this incredible power to my partner."

She continues, "I've had wonderful relationships, and my exes were bad, good, ugly, but they shaped who I am at that time. But this last one and the year and a half that I took before I met my husband officially gave me so much clarity on what I needed, not what I wanted."

Chopra and Jonas officially married in a multiday ceremony in December 2018. And four years later, in January 2022, they welcomed their first child, a baby girl named Malti Marie.

As an associate editor at HarpersBAZAAR.com, Chelsey keeps a finger on the pulse on all things celeb news. She also writes on social movements, connecting with activists leading the fight on workers' rights, climate justice, and more. Offline, she’s probably spending too much time on TikTok, rewatching Emma (the 2020 version, of course), or buying yet another corset. 

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