Why Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra Really Are a Perfect Match

Nick Jonas sealed his forever with Priyanka Chopra by praising her ambition; she's a fan of his talent. But The Voice coach looking like that with his shirt off doesn't hurt.

By Sarah Grossbart Dec 01, 2020 8:00 AMTags
Watch: Nick Jonas & Priyanka Chopra Celebrate 2nd Wedding Anniversary

Sometimes Priyanka Chopra is simply burnin' up with pride at being Mrs. Jonas. 

There are her #husbandappreciationposts and, of course, her groupie behavior at Jonas Brothers concerts and award shows and the way she brags on love Nick Jonas at every chance. "I decided to date him after seeing the video for 'Close,' where his shirt comes off," she told Harper's Bazaar earlier this year. "So that song is my favorite."

But if she had to pinpoint her absolute favorite thing about the musician, it wouldn't be his abs, as nice as they are. "It's so attractive to me that he has no—he, he feels empowered when he sees me empowered," she explained on Diane von Furstenberg's Spotify podcast InCharge with DVF. "Like he'll stand on a carpet on the side and watch when they're taking pictures. He'll like, want to see things I've done. Like, he feels so proud."

And he never misses a chance to remind her that he's the lucky one in this partnership. "We wrote like five things that we love about each other," she continued. "And the first thing he said was your ambition. I've never heard a guy say that."

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Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra's Romance Rewind

Though, at this point, she should really be getting used to hearing extraordinary things come out of the 27-year-old's mouth. 

It was two-and-a-half years ago that he got down on bended knee during their Crete vacation, waiting until just after midnight on July 19 to pull the Tiffany ring out so his proposal wouldn't interfere with her birthday festivities. "I said: 'Will you make me the happiest man in the world and marry me?' No joke—she took about 45 seconds. 45 seconds of silence," Jonas recalled to Vogue later that year, prompting him to say, "I'm going to put this ring on your finger now unless you have any objections."

Which, of course, she didn't. The whole whirlwind process led to a multi-day wedding in India and, before we all knew it, they were celebrating their first anniversary with Jonas proclaiming "forever isn't nearly long enough" to spend with his bride. 

And though they'll mark their second anniversary Dec. 1 largely in quarantine, we have no doubt they'll find a way to make it as mind-blowing as each one of their nuptials. 

David Fisher/Shutterstock

Sometimes great romances start by someone sliding into your DMs. And the tale of the Miss World turned Bollywood legend turned TV star and her actor-musician husband is certainly a love story for the modern age.

Smitten at first sight, Jonas had already texted Chopra's Quantico costar Graham Rogers a missive that went something like "Priyanka. Is. Wow." he relayed sheepishly to Vogue about when he decided to reach out to the former pageant queen himself, noting that he'd been hearing from mutual friends that they should meet. "She responded day of with a message that said, 'My team can read this. Why don't you just text me.'"

And so he did, the two exchanging text messages—"friendly with an eye toward flirtation," Jonas described—for the next five months. Then came that little incident at the 2017 Oscars. 

They had both scored coveted invites to the Vanity Fair bash and he was casually sipping a cocktail when she walked past in a black sequined Michael Kors. "And I put my drink down," he shared with Vogue, "get on one knee—this is in front of a bunch of people—and I say, 'You're real. Where have you been all my life?' Like, loud." Though she had a waiting car and a flight to India to catch, she agreed to a quick drink. 

They had another just ahead of the 2017 Met Gala. Both invited guests of Ralph Lauren, they met up for a cocktail a week earlier, a date that transitioned from New York City's iconic Carlyle Hotel to Chopra's nearby apartment. But with the actress' mother, Madhu Chopra, watching Law & Order in her nightgown nearby, the encounter remained decidedly PC. "We hung out for a couple of hours," Chopra said. "He patted my back before he left." 

Days later, they'd walk the carpet in tandem, denying that there was anything more to the story than their shared Ralph Lauren finery. Even they never expected that within a year and a half they'd be asking the designer to craft their wedding wear. 

But after 12 months of little contact—"Our lives were kind of taking us different places and the thing is that was funny is people would ask us, both in interview settings and in private, 'Are you guys seeing each other?' and the answer was no," he told Jimmy Fallon—they'd meet back up at fashion's big night. And this time when Jonas went to shoot his shot, he didn't miss. 

On May 25, 2018 he asked Chopra to tag along with a group of friends to a live performance of Beauty and the Beast at the Hollywood Bowl, meeting up beforehand at the Chateau Marmont. "She walks into the Chateau, and I feel an overwhelming sense of peace and understanding about this next chapter of my life," he told Vogue. By the time they'd come home from the Dodgers game the next evening, he knew, calling his mom in the morning to tell her that he'd found his future bride. 

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"This is date three," Chopra noted to the outlet, but for all her chiding, she was certain as well. Early on they were mid-date, she recalled, when he told her, "I love the way you look at the world. I love the drive you have." It was the exact right thing to say, she said. "As a girl, I've never had a guy tell me, 'I like your ambition.' It's always been the opposite." 

Between that and his closeness to his New Jersey-based clan, she was done for. "I can go into all of it and get all mushy, but I think the thing that really connected both of us is our love for family and faith and the importance of being connected to those that are always going to be there for you," Jonas told E! News Jason Kennedy in 2018 when asked the secret to their pairing. "We found that in each other as well, which is a beautiful thing."

Nicolas Gerardin / Instagram

Seeing no reason to wait on their forever, he proposed with her dream Tiffany & Co. ring (he'd shut down a London outpost of the famed jewelry retailer to shop with his brothers weeks earlier) during that 2018 birthday trip. 

And with the cushion-cut diamond securely on her left hand, there was no time to waste. "We decided on the venue for our wedding in October and we got married on 1 December. We had one-and-a-half months to plan, so we were just like, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's get it.' And suddenly we were like, 'Ohhh god,'" Chopra remembered to Elle UK in 2019. "It was very extravagant. Hopefully, you just do it once. So it's fine."

Their wedding(s) were no doubt every bit as exhausting as they were exhilarating, the pair criss-crossing India to take part in several receptions following their initial multi-day event combining their separate traditions and religions. But now two years in, they've settled into their forever. 

"I have a sense of contentment," she told E! News. "I feel like that's the best part of being married." 

With Jonas, she's found the place she can exhale after a hard day, the person she intends to build her life alongside. "Every single day when I wake up, I'm like, 'Oh, I have a home. Like this is my home. This person is my home,'" she shared. "And I didn't know that feeling outside of my parents. Like, it's like, 'Oh, this is the family that I have chosen.' It's family."

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Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas' Wedding Weekend

So they've locked down the important bits, the stuff that gives relationships longevity. The rest they're enjoying learning as they go along.

"Nick and I didn't really know that much about each other's careers before we came into each other's lives," she admitted to Harper's Bazaar. (Don't worry, she's since become an avowed Jonatic.) "So we used to do a show-and-tell at night where it would be like, 'This is my first song!' or 'This is my first movie!' or 'This is the first song I wrote myself,' things like that. And actually that's how we're still getting to know each other."

And they've each discovered enough to pull off some pretty epic surprises: Mariah Carey tickets and a $199,000 Mercedes Maybach for Chopra; a birthday game of touch football on Chicago's Soldier Field and a German Shepherd puppy for Jonas. 

The latter could be viewed as a trial run for future offspring. Both the actress and her musician love—currently executive producing an unscripted Amazon series based on the pre-wedding sangeet tradition—have made it clear that's the next step they're eyeing. 

"Buying a home and having a baby are on my to-do list," she told Vogue India last fall. And they did just shell out for a 20,000-square-foot Encino, Calif., spread with six bedrooms to spare, so...

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"I definitely want to be a father someday," Jonas shared on Spotify's The Rewind with Guy Raz in 2018. "I think that's a real dream, and I think I have had to grow up pretty quick. With that, you could look at it two ways, you could say that was unfair, or you could say it has given me some real perspective at an early age. And I have seen a lot of life at an early age and I hope to be able to share that with a kid of my own someday."

His bride is game, telling E! News, "I've wanted to experience motherhood since I was 12 years old. I love kids, I've always wanted to have them. And whenever it's time, I'm sure it will." 

For now, though, she's busy enjoying her happily ever after. "Every fairytale ends at the princess getting married to the prince," she posed to ET. "What happens to her life after that? So the idea is, 'Oh my God, she found her prince and now her life's done.' Most people's lives start after they get married. And that's how it should be." 

(Originally published Feb. 24, 2020, at 4 p.m. PT)