Padma Lakshmi

Padma Lakshmi is an Indianborn American 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 RealityCompetition Program. In 2010, Top Chef won the Emmy Award for Outstanding RealityCompetition Program. Her debut memoir Love, Loss and What We Ate was released on International Womens Day, March 8, 2016.

Padma Lakshmi was born in Chennai, India. Her father was a Pfizer executive, and her mother, Vijaya, is a retired nurse who specialized in oncology. Her parents divorced when she was 2, and both parents later remarried. Lakshmi is her mothers only child, but she has a younger paternal halfbrother and halfsister. The latter formerly worked as an actress and classical dancer but is now pursuing a career working with children with special needs. In an interview in The Guardian, Lakshmi said, My father had quit his job as an executive at Pfizer to manage her career. That was kind of like rubbing salt in the wound. I didnt understand why he wanted that relationship with her, and not with me.

Source: Wikipedia