Padma Lakshmi

Padma Parvati Lakshmi (born September 1, 1970) is an Indian-American author, model, activist, and television host.

Born in India, Lakshmi immigrated to the United States as a child and was raised in California.

She became a model before embarking on a career in television.

In 1984, when Lakshmi was 14 years old, she was hospitalized for three weeks and eventually diagnosed with Stevens–Johnson syndrome, a rare illness caused by hypersensitivity to an infection or a potentially fatal reaction to certain kinds of medications.

Two days after her discharge from the hospital, she was injured in a car accident in Malibu, California, which left her with a fractured right hip and a shattered right upper arm.

The arm injury required surgery, from which she retained a seven-inch scar between her elbow and shoulder.

Lakshmi graduated from William Workman High School in City of Industry, California, in 1988.

Lakshmi served as a host of Domenica In, an Italian program, in 1997.

She hosted the Food Network series Padma's Passport, which was part of the larger series Melting Pot in 2001, where she cooked recipes from around the world.

She also hosted two one-hour specials in South India and Spain for the British culinary tourism show Planet Food, broadcast on the Food Network in the U.S. and internationally on the Discovery Channels.

Lakshmi hosted the cooking competition program Top Chef on Bravo continuously from 2006 to 2023.

For her work, she received a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Reality Host in 2009 and 2020 through 2022.

She also posed nude for the May 2009 issue of Allure.

She has done shoots for photographers Mario Testino and Helmut Newton.

Lakshmi was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program in 2009 and in 2020 through 2022 for Top Chef.

Lakshmi was also an official contributor for season 19 of The View from 2015 to 2016.

Lakshmi is the current host and one of the judges on the television show Top Chef. She also serves as an executive producer of the show.

In a 2018 essay for The New York Times, Lakshmi revealed that she was raped by her older boyfriend when she was 16, which she did not report.

She stated that her decision to keep silent about the rape resulted from her stepfather's relative assaulting her when she was seven years old.

After she told her mother and stepfather about his assault, they sent her to live with her grandparents for a year.

She wrote, "The lesson was: If you speak up, you will be cast out."

She said, "I am speaking now because I want us all to fight so that our daughters never know this fear and shame and our sons know that girls' bodies do not exist for their pleasure and that abuse has grave consequences."

In effect, Lakshmi began her modeling career at age 21, when a modeling agent discovered Lakshmi while she was studying in Madrid.

She has said, "I was the first Indian model to have a career in Paris, Milan, and New York. I'm the first one to admit that I was a novelty."

Lakshmi was able to pay off her college loans by working as a model and actress.

She has modeled for designers including Emanuel Ungaro, Giorgio Armani, Gianni Versace, Ralph Lauren, and Alberta Ferretti and appeared in ad campaigns for Roberto Cavalli and Versus.

She was a favorite model of the photographer Helmut Newton, whose photographs of her often highlighted the large scar on her right arm.

Lakshmi has appeared on the covers of Redbook, Vogue India, FHM, Cosmopolitan, L'Officiel India, Asian Woman, Elle, Avenue, Industry Magazine, Marie Claire (India Edition), Harper's Bazaar, Town & Country, and Newsweek.

She is also the creator, host, and executive producer of the docuseries Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi, which premiered in June 2020 on Hulu.

The series covers the food and culture of immigrant and indigenous communities across America.

She has written five books: two cookbooks, Easy Exotic and Tangy, Tart, Hot & Sweet; an encyclopedia, The Encyclopedia of Spices & Herbs: An Essential Guide to the Flavors of the World; a memoir, Love, Loss, and What We Ate; and a children's book, Tomatoes for Neela illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal.

In 2023, she was listed among Time 's 100 most influential people in the world.

Padma Parvati Lakshmi was born in Madras (now Chennai), India.

Her mother Vijaya is a retired oncology nurse.

Her parents divorced when she was two years old.

Lakshmi emigrated to the United States at age four and was raised in New York City before moving to La Puente, California with her mother and stepfather.

As a teenager growing up in Los Angeles, she stated that she was bullied and endured racism and anti-Indian sentiment, which caused her to struggle to overcome "internalized self-loathing."

In 2020, Lakshmi won three Critic's Choice Awards for Top Chef.

In 2023 she departed from the show following the twentieth season.

Lakshmi is also the creator, host, and executive producer of Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi, which premiered on Hulu on June 18, 2020, and received the Gotham Award for Breakthrough Series and a Critic's Choice Award for Best Culinary Show.