Law Roach Responds to Priyanka Chopra 'Sample Size' Story

During a recent conversation at South by Southwest, the Citadel star talked about being body shamed the previous day by an unnamed stylist who allegedly said she "wasn't sample-sized," saying that the remark made her cry. Given the timing though, fans began to speculate that the celebrity stylist — who reportedly dressed her for a pre-Oscars party the night before — was the commenter in question, which Roach has now addressed in a new interview with The Cut.

"It was a little bit hurtful in a way that it ended up in the press, you know? Because that wasn’t the real conversation," as the image architect said. "I’ve never had that conversation with her, ever."

Rather, Roach claimed "her gatekeepers" misrepresented what he said, saying that it was "how they presented what I said to her to make her feel that way."

"And if that made her feel bad, that wasn’t — it was taken out of context," he said before accusing her team of trying "to get her to be like, 'Oh, okay, I’m not working with him no more. He’s insensitive to my body.'"

Roach continued, "Which I’m like, “How is that possible? I’ve been dressing you for literally pre-pandemic, and it’s been nothing but great things."

In fact, Roach went on to say that he's only had positive experiences with Chopra during their years-long working relationship, prior to saying that problems tend to arise when a celebrity's team needs him to be "the bad guy because I’m the one who’s dealing with the clothes and the body."

"I need to be the one to say, 'Oh, you know, be careful because the pictures aren't as beautiful because you coming across, you know, a little thicker than you used to be,'" he said, while clarifying that it isn't just Chopra's team but more of a "general" trend.

"So they’ll say that to me or have a discussion with me but then take it back as if I was the lead in the discussion," he said. "And I’m not saying that’s exactly what happened, but that’s what feels like happened to me."

Chopra's story was told shortly before Roach announced his retirement in a since-deleted Instagram post about "the politics, the lies and false narratives" attached to the job. However, he later clarified he would still work with Zendaya and that he wasn't "retiring from fashion" as a whole.

"What I’m retiring from is the celebrity styling part of it: the being in service and at service of other people," he explained to Vogue. "I’ve done everything I wanted to do in this career. I’ve received all the awards, the accolades, I’ve changed people’s lives."

Roach added, "And I just feel like, I’ve had enough, you know? So that Instagram post wasn’t a PR stunt. It was really me giving myself the grace to say: It’s okay. You can do something else.”

Chopra has yet to respond to Roach's interview with The Cut.

Photos via Getty / Pascal Le Segretain & Unique Nicole