Padma Lakshmi reflects on ‘mortifying’ speculation about identity of daughter’s father during pregnancy

Padma Lakshmi has spoken candidly about the “mortifying” experience of having the press speculate about the identity of her daughter’s father when she was pregnant.

The Top Chef host, 51, who gave birth to daughter Krishna Thea in 2010, reflected on the press’s obsession with the father of her unborn child during an appearance on People’s podcast Me Becoming Mom.

According to the Tomatoes for Neela author, who revealed during the podcast that she had learned she was pregnant years after she was told her severe endometriosis would make it nearly impossible to conceive, she was dating two men at the time, and didn’t know which was the father in the early stages of her pregnancy.

“It definitely complicated the situation, and as we know, our society is a patriarchal society, so I knew that it was not the ideal way, obviously, to be in the situation I was in,” she recalled.

However, according to Lakshmi, she was overjoyed with the news that she was pregnant, with the TV host recalling how the media speculation was like a “white noise presence”.

“I was just happy. That stuff was certainly there. It was in the background, it was always like a white noise presence,” she said.

But, according to the Taste the Nation host, the situation became “icky when the press started snooping around in various countries,” with Lakshmi recalling how, “at that time, it was splashed all over the newspapers and it was mortifying”.

While Lakshmi was aware of the public’s attention, she noted that it was “inconsequential because the main event was that I was going to be a mom”.

During the conversation, Lakshmi also reflected on the process of identifying her daughter’s father, which she admitted “weren’t easy conversations”.

The cookbook author shares her daughter with ex Adam Dell, who she had begun dating in 2009. However, she also acknowledged that her daughter was loved and wanted by both men, and that she had the support of all of her family and friends throughout the pregnancy.

Lakshmi previously opened up about initially not knowing who the father of her child was, and the media’s focus on her pregnancy, in her 2016 memoir Love, Loss, and What We Ate, where she revealed that, after the “initial speculation, the press wouldn’t stop harping on the fact that I hadn’t revealed the name of the father of my child”.

“This prying and scrutinising of my personal life in the pages of the tabloids was beyond anything I had previously experienced,” she wrote. “The truth was I didn’t know the paternity myself until late that September.”

In her memoir, Lakshmi also acknowledged the “guilt and shame” that she felt at the time over the complicated situation.