Priyanka Deshpande (born 28 April 1992) is an Indian television presenter, host and actress. She predominantly works in the Tamil television and film industry, especially in Tamil entertainment. Priyanka is also one of the highest paid South Indian television presenters in the industry.[2] She is very well known for hosting numerous television shows such as Oo Solriya Oo Oohm Solriya, Super Singer Junior, Super Singer (Tamil reality show), The Wall (Tamil game show), Start music, OlliBelly, Suriya Vanakkam, Isai Unplugged, Azhagiya Penne, Glimpse, Jodi Number One and Kings of Comedy Juniors.[3] She has also appeared in a few short films such as Raani Aattam (2015) and Unnodu Vaazhnthaal Varamallava (2016). Priyanka has also worked as a television host in various Indian television networks like Zee Tamil, Sun TV, Chutti TV, Sun Music and Star Vijay. She is often referred to as Superstar of Television.[4][5][6][7]
Her appearance as a television anchor in the singing reality show Super Singer (Tamil reality show) earned her to bag the Ananda Vikatan Cinema Awards for the Best Female Anchor in 2016. She later also won the Best Female Anchor award in the Vijay Television Awards annual function in 2017. Priyanka also yet again won Best Lady Anchor for the third time in a row in the Galatta Nakshathra TV-Film Awards in 2018, winning the same nomination category for three years in a row.[8][9] She also received the award Best Entertaining Star award by Blacksheep Digital Awards in 2021 after her success of her YouTube channel.[10] In 2021, She joined the reality TV show Bigg Boss Tamil 5 hosted by Kamal Haasan as a contestant and finished as the first runner up.[11]
Personal life
Priyanka Deshpande was born on 28 April 1992 in Karnataka. Her parents moved from Maharashtra to Karnataka before she was born. She also has a younger brother called Rohit Deshpande.[12] After Priyanka migrated to Chennai she did her secondary schooling at St. Anthony School and later graduated from Ethiraj College for Women with a college degree. Priyanka married her long-term boyfriend Praveen Kumar in 2016.[13][14][15]
In 2022 reports alleged Priyanka and her husband Praveen Kumar had divorced. Priyanka later dismissed it as a baseless rumour.[16][17]
Career
In 2019, Priyanka started her own show on Star Vijay called Start Music which only featured her as the solo host for the show after eight years. Priyanka also debuted as an actress in various different short films like Raani Aattam Directed by J. Dharmendra[18] and Unnodu Vaazhnthaal Varamallava, both films were paired up with film actor Vignesh Karthick. She also went on to appear in various different television commercials for Amazon Prime and Aachi Masala. Priyanka also appeared in the music video So Soku with Pugazh which was also trending on social media.[19]
Apart from hosting TV shows, Priyanka also has a YouTube channel where she entertains people in virtual coverage, with her channel currently boasting 1.38M subscribers.[22]
Success after Bigg Boss
After her participation on Bigg Boss and eventually emerging as the runner-up as well. Priyanka announced on the Instagram feed that she received more than 10 offers from various different television networks to host different shows on different television channels. She also participated as a guest on her formerly hosted show Start Music which was hosted by Ma Ka Pa Anand due to the absence of Priyanka during her time in Bigg Boss. She also later made a appearance on the celebration and success show of Bigg Boss called Bigg Boss 5 Kondattam appearing as a guest.[23][24]
Television
Key
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Denotes Priyanka soon making appearance into that show
^Certain award groups do not simply award one winner. They recognize several different recipients, have runners-up, and have third place. Since this is a specific recognition and is different from losing an award, runner-up mentions are considered wins in this award tally. For simplification and to avoid errors, each award in this list has been presumed to have had a prior nomination.