Padma Parvati Lakshmi, Lady Rushdie (born September 1, 1970 in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India) is an Indian American cookbook author, actress, and model. 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.

Her father is a Keralite and former Pfizer executive, and her mother is a nurse specializing in suicide prevention. Lakshmi grew up shuttling between her grandparents in Chennai and her mother in New York. Her parents separated when she was one and divorced a year later, making her their only child.

Both parents later remarried, and Lakshmi has a younger paternal half-brother and half-sister. In 1984, when she was 14 years old, Padma was in a car accident in Malibu, causing an injury to her right arm that required surgery, which left a 7-inch scar between her elbow and shoulder. Lakshmi went to Workman High School in the City of Industry, California.

Lakshmi is a 1992 graduate of Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA, where she received a B.A. with honors in Theatre Arts. She speaks English, Tamil, Hindi, Italian and Spanish. Lakshmi's career began at age 16, when she was discovered by a modeling agent in India while sitting in a café.

As she has stated, "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." She became more popular with her nude poses. She has modeled for top designers such as Emanuel Ungaro, 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. She has appeared on the cover of RedBook, Vogue India,FHM, Cosmopolitan, L'Officiel India, Asian Woman, Avenue, Industry Magazine, Marie Claire (India Edition), Harper's Bazaar, Town & Country, and Newsweek. Lakshmi also posed nude for the May 2009 issue of Allure magazine.

Her first cookbook Easy Exotic was awarded Best First Book at the 1999 World Cookbook Awards at Versailles. She was host of the Food Network series, Padma's Passport, which was part of the larger series Melting Pot, in 2001. She also hosted two one-hour specials on India and Spain for the British culinary tourism show Planet Food, which have been broadcast on the Food Network in the US and internationally on the Discovery Channels.

Her second cookbook, Tangy, Tart, Hot and Sweet, was released October 2, 2007. On April 17, 2004, in New York City, Lakshmi married the novelist Salman Rushdie, 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). On October 1, 2009, after years of struggling with a gynaecological medical illness known as endometriosis, a condition that causes pelvic pain and has been associated with infertility, Lakshmi confirmed that she was pregnant. Lakshmi also co-founded The Endometriosis Foundation of America, which is a nonprofit organization focused on increasing awareness, education, research, and legislative advocacy against the disease On February 20, 2010, Lakshmi gave birth to a baby girl named Krishna Thea Lakshmi.

Although the father's identity was not initially given, it was later revealed to be Adam Dell. In January 2011, Dell sued Lakshmi for full custody of their daughter. Lakshmi was brought up as a vegetarian and has admitted that because of this, she sometimes becomes "squeamish" when sampling other cultural delicacies.

However, in 2009, she starred in a television advertisement created by Mendelsohn Zien Advertising 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.

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