10 things you didn't know about 'Top Chef's' Padma Lakshmi

The chef's real name is Padma Parvati Lakshmi Vaidynathan, but when she moved to America from India as a child, she said she thought she needed an American name. So in high school, she went by Angelique.

"I cringe to think about that," she told InStyle in 2016.

When she became an American citizen, she officially changed her name to Padma Lakshmi in honor of her mother, Vijaya Lakshmi.

"I was this tall when I was 13 in eighth grade. I had a very long neck, I used to get called E.T., Skeletor, giraffe, you name it," Lakshmi told People in 2016.

She said students also bullied her for being Indian.

"I didn't feel any different, I didn't feel any less American, even though I ate rice and curry or even though my name was Padma or I spoke to my mother in a different language, I felt as American as anybody else in my classroom," she said. "But they didn't feel I was as American."

Lakshmi has a long scar on her upper arm, which she got from a car accident when she was a teenager. In the past, she said she was self-conscious of the scar and always hid it. Now, she has learned to love it.

"My attitude about my body has grown and changed and morphed and evolved, as has my body," she told Self in 2016. "It's what sets me apart and makes me me, and even if someone could wave a magic wand I really don't think I would choose to eliminate my scar."

Lakshmi's father left when she was 2 years old, so her mother, Vijaya Lakshmi, raised her on her own. Padma Lakshmi is doing the same with her own daughter, 11-year-old Krishna, although she is co-parenting with her ex, Adam Dell.

"Krishna's father is very involved in her life, so he is a co-parent, but it's different if you're married and living with the child's other parent," Lakshmi told Yahoo News in 2021. "We don't live together; we're not together anymore. We are good friends and we have the same first priority, which is her."

Lakshmi was also married to the novelist Salman Rushdie from 2004 to 2007.

She went to college at Clark University in Massachusetts and studied American literature and theater arts in hopes of being an actress.

"I am very fortunate to be on TV for a decade now and not be playing an ethnic role," Lakshmi told Instyle in 2016. "That was a big thing for me."

In 2013, she told Fitness magazine she goes up two dress sizes every time she films for "Top Chef." But after each season, she eats healthier and works out five times a week.

"I love food way too much to starve myself just to look good," she told the magazine. "I will put in the work at the gym so I can enjoy what I eat."

For years, Lakshmi lived her life thinking she just had severe menstrual symptoms. But in her 30s, she was diagnosed with endometriosis, which is when the tissue cells of the uterus grow outside the uterus.

"I spent 25 percent of my life in bed because of this chronic illness that I had no idea I had. And it was always something that I was told I just had to put up with, that it was my lot as a woman to suffer with cramps because some girls got it and some girls didn't," Lakshmi told Self in 2016. "It wasn't until I was properly diagnosed and got on the other side of my treatment, which included several surgeries, that I realized what normal really is."

She founded the Endometriosis Foundation of America with her doctor, Tamer Seckin, in 2009 to help raise awareness of the disorder.

In 1999, she published a cookbook titled "Easy Exotic," and followed it up with another called "Tangy, Tart, Hot, and Sweet" in 2007. She then published her memoir, "Love, Loss, and What We Ate," in 2016 and it became a New York Times bestseller. That same year she also published "The Encyclopedia of Spices and Herbs."

Most recently, she released her first children's book, "Tomatoes for Neela," in 2021.

"It's also, more importantly, an intergenerational story about an Asian family who writes down all of the recipes that are important to them," Lakshmi told Yahoo News in 2021 about "Tomatoes for Neela." "The book tries to show young children how writing down recipes is literally saving pieces of our family history."

Lakshmi is fluent in English, Tamil, Hindi, Italian, and Spanish.

Although Lakshmi has tasted some of the finest foods in the world, she told The Guardian that her last meal would be very simple.

"On the menu, there would be fried masala chicken, marinated in buttermilk, sea salt and sugar, then battered with Indian spices and chilli," she told the publication in 2016. "There'd be rice, with black beans and spices. And there'd be lots of veg."

The cheese board would have cheddar, manchego, and chutney.