Jameela Jamil calls out writer who mistook her for Priyanka Chopra: 'You can't even tell us apart'
Jameela Jamil is calling out a writer who mistook her for fellow South Asian actress Priyanka Chopra, who is in the news after being confronted at Beautycon this past weekend about her support for the Indian Armed Forces. Chopra hails from India, while Jamil was born and raised in England to an Indian father and Pakistani mother.
On Saturday, Chopra was taking part in a Beautycon panel when audience member Ayesha Malik, who is Pakistani, accused the former Quantico star of being a “hypocrite” for supporting humanitarian causes while “encouraging nuclear war against Pakistan.” Malik cited a Feb. 26 tweet in which Chopra wrote “Jai Hind (Victory to India),” which she took to be a call to action regarding the India-Pakistan conflict over the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir.
Footage of Chopra defending herself and accusing Malik of “venting” has since made the rounds on social media.
Priyanka Chopra gets an audience question calling her hypocritical — here’s her response. #beautycon pic.twitter.com/pS82qX1SQG
— Lindsay Weinberg (@WeinbergLindsay) August 10, 2019
“War is not something that I'm really fond of, but I am patriotic, so I'm sorry if I hurt sentiments to people who do love me and have loved me, but I think that all of us have a sort of middle ground that we all have to walk, just like you probably do as well,” the actress, who married singer Nick Jonas last year, shot back at Malik.
“The way you came at me right now, girl, don't yell,” she continued. “We're all here for love. Don't yell. Don't embarrass yourself. We all walk that middle ground. Thank you for your enthusiasm and your question and your voice."
Writer Eoin Higgins was among those unimpressed with Chopra’s stance, commenting on a video of the former Miss World, “The ‘Good’ Place?” That’s clearly a reference to the NBC sitcom The Good Place — which stars Jamil, not Chopra.
The mistake was quickly pointed out, and Higgins tweeted an apology.
“Confused two actresses in a pretty unacceptable and inexcusable f***-up earlier, my apologies,” he wrote.
But Jamil had already caught wind of the error and expected more from Higgins.
“How about you apologize to the two actresses, with an extra apology to me for trying to throw me under the bus for something I didn’t do in your ‘witty’ attempt to stir the pot...?” she tweeted. “Or are you not doing so because you STILL don’t know our names?
“And don’t even THINK about f***ing deleting it,” she added, going on to call out the racial motivations behind confusing two South Asian women. “There are SO few of us allowed into this business, and you can’t even tell us apart... P.S. I’m also not Mindy Kaling, Aziz Ansari or Kumail Nanjiani.”
Higgins — who did, in fact, delete his original tweet — responded with a more personal mea culpa to Jamil and Chopra.
I apologize to both you and @priyankachopra. As I said it’s inexcusable so I’m not going to try to rationalize or explain. All I can do is say I’m sorry.
— Eoin Higgins (@EoinHiggins_) August 11, 2019
While Jamil was quick to shut down the racial microaggression, she held back on following Chopra’s lead by commenting on the situation in Kashmir. Jamil shared a statement in which she refused to take sides other than to “condemn all nuclear war.” She also declined to share her thoughts on Chopra, as doing so would undermine the larger India-Pakistan debate at hand.
I speak not from any place of cowardice, but from a place of not wanting to make anything worse from a place of any ignorance. (And stop asking me to comment on Priyanka. I’m not interested in such an important topic being reduced to an unhelpful, manipulated, media cat-fight) pic.twitter.com/jsyrQpzGX1
— Jameela Jamil 🌈 (@jameelajamil) August 12, 2019
Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:
Want daily pop culture news delivered to your inbox? Sign up here for Yahoo Entertainment & Lifestyle’s newsletter.
