Padma Lakshmi Bio, Daughter, Husband, Net Worth, Age, Height and Body Stats
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It is really difficult to describe Padma Lakshmi in one word because she is very multifaceted and has a success story in all her businesses. The multi-talented model, actress, entrepreneur, businesswoman, TV presenter, and author became the first Indian supermodel and worked with top fashion labels in the United States and Europe. She is currently single, but once had a difficult time with the institution of marriage. Read on to learn more about this actress and model.

Padma Lakshmi Bio (Age) 

Padma Lakshmi was born on September 1, 1970, in Chennai, formerly known as Madras in India, and was given a very long name at birth (as it belongs to Indian culture). Her birth name was Padma Parvati Lakshmi Vaidynathan and she was born from her parents – Vaidynathan and Vijaya. Her father, Vaidynathan, worked as a senior executive at the pharmaceutical company Pfizer before retiring, while her mother, Vijaya, is a retired nurse and doctor who has worked in cancer detection, treatment, and prevention.

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Her parents divorced when she was just two years old and she moved on with her mother, which meant that she spent most of her early life in Chennai, India with her maternal grandparents and later in the United States with her mother and stepfather. She was later diagnosed with Stevens-Johnson syndrome as a teenager and attended William Workman High School, Industry, California, where she graduated in 1988. During her school years, she suffered so much from racial segregation and intimidation from her classmates that it affected her self-esteem.

After high school, the multilingual model, who can speak her native dialect of Tamil, Italian, Hindu, and English, enrolled at Clark University, Massachusetts, to study psychology, but instead graduated with a bachelor’s degree in theater arts in 1992. During her studies, she had the opportunity to take part in exchange programs in Madrid and Spain.

Career

Before she ventured into the acting for which she is known, Padma Lakshmi made a career as a model. She started her modeling career while still a student in 1991, and during her exchange program in Spain, a model agent met her in a café in Madrid with an offer to become a model, and she did not turn it down. It became a career path for her as she blossomed in it. Throughout her career, she traveled the world – New York in the USA, Millan in Italy, and Paris in France – becoming the first model from the Asian country of India to do so.

During her career, she worked as a model for top global fashion brands. She has modeled for Gianni Versace, Alberta Ferretti, Giorgio Armani, and Ralph Lauren, among others. Padma Lakshmi appeared on the front page of top magazines like Vogue India, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire (India Edition), Newsweek, Avenue, Redbook, Asian Woman, Allure, to name a few. She gave her best and even posed nude for Allure, which was captured in the May 2009 issue of the magazine.

Padma Lakshmi went to film and television, where she took part in the documentary Unzipped (1995) and the television series Domenica In (1997), before getting her first film roles in 1999 in the Italian films Il Figlio di Sandokan (1998) and Caraibi (Pirates: Blood Brothers). This was followed in 2000 by Linda e il brigadier (Linda and the Brigadiers), where she appeared as an Indian lady in one episode of the series. In 2001 she appeared in the musical film Glitter as the disco singer Sylk. Mariah Carey also appeared in the film. The following year she appeared in the Sci-Fi TV show Star Trek: Enterprise and then as supermodel Sheila Bardez in Boom (2003).

Lakshmi appeared on the 2006 TV show Top Chef as hostess and judge and is also the executive producer of the series. She joined the cooking show in its second season and was recognized for her efforts. In 2007 the series was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program but did not win. Padma Lakshmi also failed to win, although she was nominated for the 2009 Emmy Award for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program. The show will eventually win the 2010 Emmy Award (for an Outstanding Reality or Reality-Competition Program).

As an author, she has also written two cookbooks. The first book, entitled “Easy Exotic”, was awarded “Best First Book” at the 1999 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. She published her second cookbook, Tangy, Tart, Hot, and Sweet, in October 2007 and also wrote a memoir that was published on International Women’s Day 2016 under the title Love, Loss, and What We Ate.

What is Padma Lakshmi’s Net Worth?

The current net worth of the TV presenter and award-winning cookbook author cannot be determined at the moment because of conflicting reports on the internet. While some sites estimate her net worth at 20 million dollars, others estimate it at 30 million dollars. What is clear, however, is that the model has used her career well and accumulated enough to spend the rest of her days in luxury.

However, another fact is that her only daughter, Krishna Thea, is much richer than her mother. She is worth $1.8 billion in trust funds! Yes, that was the amount Krishna inherited as it is contained in the will of Padma Lakshmi’s billionaire ex-lover Teddy Forstmann, who died of brain cancer in November 2011.

Married Life – Husband, Daughter

Lakshmi has been married before. From 2004 and 2007 she was married to the British writer Salman Rushdie, who was almost 20 years older than her. Rushdie and Lakshmi met at a New York party in 1999, and Sir Rushdie was married to his third wife at the time. Soon after, they started dating, and at first, it was all just a dream for the gorgeous model.

Their relationship was not what you might call a heavenly union, because apart from the age difference between the two, Rushdie was a very unattractive man, and observers and fans of the model wondered why she was inclined to make such a decision. Lakshmi had responded to her fans’ concerns that you never decide who your heart falls in love with. The couple lived together for three years before closing the wedding knot on April 17, 2004.

But three years later the marriage broke up and they were divorced in July 2007. At the time of their divorce, no reason was given for their separation, but in her memoirs from 2016, entitled Love, Loss and What We Ate, the author of Midnight’s Children and The Satanic Verses described her as a cold, heartless, unsympathetic, unfeeling, needy and jealous man who, despite her health challenges (when she was diagnosed with endometriosis), wanted to have sex with her without caring about her pain.

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When all this ended with Sir Salman Rushdie, Padma Lakshmi got involved in another serious relationship with a venture capitalist, Adam Dell (brother of Michael Dell), and also had an affair with the billionaire and former CEO of IMG, Teddy Forstmann. Although she was told by doctors that she would never be able to become pregnant in a conventional way due to endometriosis, she found out that she was with a child, which required a DNA test to prove paternity because she was with two men. The child – a daughter born on February 20, 2010 – was proven to be that of Adam Dell, and she was named Krishna Thea Lakshmi-Dell.

Body Facts – Height

As a model, the beautiful and gorgeous hot bride has the perfect body measurements to fit her career. She has the shape of an hourglass with curves in the right places. Her bra size is 36B, while her stats are 38-27-40 inches (chest-wist-hip). Padma Lakshmi stands at a height of 1.75 m (5 feet 9 inches) and weighs 68 kg (150 lbs). She has black hair and her eyes are brown.

Other Facts About Padma Lakshmi

At the age of seven, Padma Lakshmi was sexually harassed by a friend of her stepfather.

As a teenager, she suffered a car accident in which her pelvis and right arm were damaged. After surgery, the repair left a long scar (about 7 inches long) on her upper arm.

As an entrepreneur, Padma Lakshmi has a jewelry line called “The Padma” and a kitchenware and dinnerware line called “Easy Exotic” and “The Padma Collection” respectively.

Her memoirs “Love, Loss” and “What We Ate”, published in 2006, became a New York Times bestseller.