Priyanka Chopra Jonas says one part of Nick Jonas’ approach to their marriage matters so much that she is not sure their relationship would work without it, his willingness to embrace where she comes from.
Speaking at the August 20 New York premiere of The Cycle of Love, Chopra was asked about Jonas’ connection to her Indian culture and traditions. “I don’t know if I’d love him if he didn’t,” she told E! News, emphasizing the importance of respecting a partner’s roots in a multicultural relationship.
Chopra offered a much simpler answer when asked what has helped keep the couple’s relationship strong nearly eight years after their wedding. “Being kind to your partner,” she said, calling kindness especially important.
The subject was fitting for the premiere she was attending. Chopra executive-produced The Cycle of Love, a documentary about Indian artist P.K. Mahanandia, who traveled roughly 6,000 miles by bicycle in 1977 to reunite with Lotta von Schedvin, the Swedish woman he loved.
Chopra Says Respecting a Partner’s Roots Is Essential
Chopra framed Jonas’ embrace of Indian culture as part of a broader principle she believes matters when two people come from different backgrounds. Rather than expecting either partner to leave important traditions behind, she said there needs to be genuine respect for where the other person comes from.
That has been visible throughout their relationship. Jonas has celebrated Hindu holidays with Chopra and their daughter, Malti Marie, participated in Indian family traditions and repeatedly traveled with his wife to India.
Asked what keeps love strong over time, she returned to kindness rather than offering a complicated formula. She and Jonas married in December 2018 after a courtship that moved from dating to engagement and marriage within months.
Their Wedding Brought Both of Their Traditions Together
That emphasis on respecting different backgrounds was built into their wedding celebrations in India. Chopra and Jonas married at the Umaid Bhawan Palace in Jodhpur in December 2018, holding separate Christian and Hindu ceremonies so that both families’ traditions would be represented.
The cultural blending had begun even before the wedding. During their traditional roka ceremony in August 2018, Jonas participated in Hindu prayers led by a priest. Chopra later recalled in a Vogue interview that the prayers were performed in Sanskrit and joked that even she could not say them as well as he did. “The Indians were so impressed with their National Jiju,” Chopra said at the time, using the Hindi term for brother-in-law.
She has continued to identify sincerity as another quality she values in Jonas. In a February 2026 interview with Variety, Chopra said the speed of their relationship initially made his emotional openness seem almost too genuine to believe. Over time, she came to see that sincerity as a defining part of who he is.
‘The Cycle of Love’ Put Another Cross-Cultural Marriage at the Center of the Night
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The documentary behind Chopra’s latest comments follows a far more physically demanding journey toward a cross-cultural marriage. Mahanandia met Lotta in Delhi in the 1970s after she asked him to draw her portrait. When she eventually returned to Sweden, the two maintained contact before Mahanandia set out to reach her.
In 1977, the 23-year-old artist left India on a second-hand bicycle and traveled roughly 6,000 miles across countries and continents before eventually reuniting with Lotta in Europe. The couple went on to marry and have now been together for approximately five decades.
Their children, Emelie Mahanandia von Schedvin and Karl Mahanandia von Schedvin, became producers on the documentary. Chopra told E! that their involvement in preserving their parents’ story helped make the project particularly moving for her.
“Everything about it is so heartwarming,” Chopra said, describing the story as a welcome “ray of sunshine.” She said one lesson she took from Mahanandia and Lotta’s relationship was the importance of resilience and standing by the person you love.
Priyanka Chopra Became the Executive Producer the Filmmakers Had Wanted
Director Orlando von Einsiedel said Chopra’s involvement arrived in an unusually fitting way. According to the filmmaker, his team had discussed her early in the project as the kind of executive producer they would ideally want behind the documentary.
They did not initially recruit her. Von Einsiedel told E! that Chopra later saw the film herself, contacted the filmmakers and asked whether she could join the team.
He credited her with doing substantial work to help an independent documentary secure distribution and reach audiences, saying filmmakers often have to fight not only to make such projects but also to ensure people have an opportunity to see them. The Cycle of Love opens in U.S. theaters on August 28 through Variance Films.