Padma Lakshmi ([ˈpəd̪maː ˈləkʃmiː]; born September 1, 1970) is an Indian-born American cookbook author, actress, model, television host and executive producer. Her debut cookbook Easy Exotic won her the "Best First Book" award at the 1999 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. She has been the host of the US reality television program Top Chef since season two in 2006, for which she received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program. In 2010, Top Chef won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program.

Biography

On April 17, 2004, in New York City, Lakshmi married the novelist Salman Rushdie, twenty-three years her senior, to whom she was introduced at a party in 1999 hosted by the journalist and editor Tina Brown. On July 2, 2007, the couple filed for divorce. She is the model for one of the central characters and love interests in Rushdie's novel Fury (a novel dedicated to her as well).
Several years later, she started dating Adam Dell in 2011 she gave birth to their only child. They are no longer dating.

Lakshmi was brought up as a vegetarian and has admitted that because of this, she sometimes becomes "squeamish" when sampling other cultural delicacies. In 2009, she starred in a television advertisement for the Carl's Jr. restaurant chain eating a Western Bacon Cheeseburger, and in her second cookbook Tangy, Tart, Hot and Sweet she credits the chain with bringing her away from vegetarianism during her teenage years.


Philanthropy
Lakshmi is a co-founder of The Endometriosis Foundation of America, which is a nonprofit organization focused on increasing awareness, education, research, and legislative advocacy against the disease. Padma is now a speaker and fundraiser at the MIT center for Gynepathology research and gave the keynote address at its launch. She has also been a global ambassador for Keep a Child Alive, since 2007 and has traveled to KCA sites in India on their behalf.