Padma Lakshmi

Padma Lakshmi hosted Bravo’s cooking competition Top Chef from 2006 to 2023. She earned Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Reality Host in 2009, 2020, 2021 and 2022. Lakshmi created, hosted and produced Hulu’s 2020 docuseries Taste the Nation With Padma Lakshmi and is the author of cookbooks Easy Exotic and Tangy, Tart, Hot & Sweet. She also published a 2016 memoir titled Love, Loss, and What We Ate: A Memoir.

Lakshmi was previously married to novelist Salman Rushdie from 2004 to 2007. Lakshmi sparked an on-and-off romance with Adam Dell in 2009, welcoming daughter Krishna one year later. Dell filed for full custody of their daughter in 2011, but the twosome settled matters privately. They rekindled their romance in 2017 but split for good in 2021. Lakshmi was linked to Black-ish creator Kenya Barris in November 2023 after they were spotted holding hands in New York City.