Priyanka Chopra has shared her “profound regret” at starring in ads for skin-lightening cream Pond’s.

In the beauty brand’s advert, which aired in India, the actress plays a dark-skinned woman who loses her partner to a woman with a lighter complexion, prompting her to whiten her skin with the Pond’s cream and win her boyfriend back.

The 38-year-old discussed starring in the controversial campaign in her new memoir Unfinished, and said appearing in the advert was “one of my most profound regrets”, and she apologized to those she had affected with the brand’s negative messaging.

“I can’t go back and change what I did, but I can apologize, and I do so sincerely. To all the people who saw the harmful messaging that I contributed to, to all the people who still have to see commercials like these in every medium – I am deeply sorry,” Priyanka continued.

The Baywatch star confessed she had grown up believing her darker skin tone was unattractive.

“I thought about how pained I’d felt when I was called kaali (derogatory term meaning dark-skinned) as a child. I was now promoting the destructive messages that had so eaten away at my sense of self-worth when I was growing up, and I knew the only person I could blame was myself,” she wrote.

She also touched upon the ad campaign in a recent interview with the Guardian newspaper, and said that watching the advert again upset her.

“I felt sad, actually. I saw myself through my 13-year-old eyes when I was making concoctions in my bathroom trying to lighten my skin tone,” she shared.

– Cover Media