Padma Lakshmi’s relationship history is as spicy as her crab cakes with chili, from her high-profile marriage to novelist Salman Rushdie to her on-again, off-again romances with powerful businessmen.
Reflecting on her storied romantic past, Lakshmi, now 55, shared, “I think when I was young, I was looking for a mentor and a mate perhaps or just felt lost. It's really hard to find a man who keeps your attention, regardless of age, and that's what I'm looking for now.”
With her new competition series, America’s Culinary Cup, premiering March 4 on CBS, take a look back at who Lakshmi has called a husband, who she’s dated, and why some fans now think she’s now in a relationship with fellow chef Melissa King.
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No. The former Top Chef host has been married once, to author Salman Rushdie. The two wed in 2004 after dating for several years, and were divorced in 2007.
She also had a long-term on-off relationship with venture capitalist Adam Dell, with whom she shares a daughter, that ended in 2021, but the couple was never married.
“I don’t feel I need to be married,” she told Wendy Williams in 2018, when she and Dell were still an item. “I think my life is great. I don’t need a certificate to prove anything.”
Related: ‘Top Chef’ Star Joins Padma Lakshmi’s New Culinary Competition Show
Is Padma still married to Salman Rushdie?
Nope. They were married for about three years, from 2004 to 2007. At the time, their relationship drew major media attention, both for their roughly 23-year age gap and Rushdie’s literary fame, which was defined in part by the threats he received to his life: In 1989, Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ordered a fatwa—a religious edict—calling for the author’s death in response to Rushdie’s supposedly “blasphemous” novel The Satanic Verses.
Decades later, in 2022, the fatwa culminated in Rushdie being stabbed multiple times, including in the neck, as he was about to give a public lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York. After he was confirmed to be pulling through following surgery, Lakshmi showed support for her ex on Twitter (now X). “Worried and wordless, can finally exhale,” she wrote. “Now hoping for swift healing.”
Related: Salman Rushdie Shares How He Found Joy in Writing Fiction Again After His Near-Fatal Attack
The two first crossed paths at a party in New York in 1999. At the time, Rushdie was still married to his third wife (he’s had five total) and Lakshmi was a cookbook author building a multi-hyphenate career as a model and actress.
“For us Indians, he’s like Hemingway,” Lakshmi told People in 2016. “Imagine a young woman in her twenties, who loves books and who had published her little cookbook and in comes this guy. I mean, he was the best thing that ever happened to me by a mile. The fact that somebody of that stature and caliber was even interested remotely enough in me to want to take me to lunch was kind of unbelievable.”
According to her 2016 memoir, Love, Loss And What We Ate, Rushdie assured Lakshmi that his marriage was already over when they met, and filed for divorce. In 2000, they moved in together and in 2004, they wed in New York among 275 very fancy guests.
How long was Padma Lakshmi married to Salman Rushdie?
They tied the knot in 2004 and split in 2007, making for a three-year marriage. As the story goes, Lakshmi had asked for a divorce in private, but Rushdie responded via a public statement issued by his literary agent. “Salman Rushdie has agreed to divorce his wife, Padma Lakshmi, because of her desire to end their marriage,” the statement read.
In her memoir Love, Loss And What We Ate and the press surrounding it, Lakshmi opened up about how her undiagnosed endometriosis was a major reason for the collapse of her marriage: As her condition grew worse she was often in too much pain to have sex, leading to many fights over their lack of intimacy.
“I think that Salman took it personally and I think that he felt rejected,” she said. "I can understand that.” At one point, she claimed, Rushdie called her a “bad investment.”
Despite any hurtful exchanges, the couple remained friends over the years, and Lakshmi gave him a heads up about her memoir before it came out.
“I told him, ‘I just want you to know that I talk about the demise of our marriage and I talk about it because I really wanted to talk about endometriosis and also that you were a huge part of my life,’" she told People. "And he said, ‘You have the right to tell your side of the story as you see it.’”
Also, she rightly pointed out, “He’s the most famous proponent of free speech.”
Lakshmi has one daughter with Adam Dell, a venture capitalist and tech entrepreneur known for launching financial platforms like Clarity Money and Domain Money. He also comes from a well-known business family: His brother is Michael Dell, the founder of Dell Technologies.
What happened with Padma Lakshmi and Adam Dell?
Lakshmi began intermittently dating Dell in 2009, about two years after her split from novelist Salman Rushdie and while also in an on-off relationship with billionaire investor Teddy Forstmann, whom she dated from 2007 until his death from brain cancer in 2011. In October 2009, she revealed she was pregnant without publicly naming the father, instantly kicking off a tabloid frenzy. “It was just about as horrible as is possible to be,” Lakshmi told the New Yorker. “I mean, talk about slut shaming.”
Because Lakshmi had reunited with Forstmann, and because he was by her side when she gave birth to her daughter, Krishna, some assumed he was the baby’s dad—and, by all accounts, he wanted to be. (He even left the girl a trust when he died.) But there was always uncertainty around the situation.
"It probably wasn't the best choice, but it was the choice that I made at the time,” Lakshmi said of being with two men at once. “I didn't want to be in a serious relationship. I was still really hurting from my divorce. "
In 2011, Dell filed for custody and asked that his name be added to Krishna’s birth certificate, making it public knowledge that he was, in fact, Krishna’s biological dad.
Despite going through a bitter custody battle, which settled out of court in 2012, Lakshmi and Dell rekindled their romantic relationship in 2017. ”They both love that child so much, they’re putting the past behind them,” a source told Page Six at the time. “She just is being very cautious and private to protect Krishna, regardless of what happens. She’s forgiven the past and is giving this a try.”
On an episode of Hollywood Medium with Tyler Henry in 2018, Lakshmi asked Henry if she had Forstmann's “blessing” to be in a relationship with Dell, given that the two men were on bad terms before Forstmann's death.
“He does not want you to be alone,” Henry responded. “He doesn’t want you to have to parent alone. And he’s acknowledging this feeling that he will always be connected to you, but you should absolutely feel like you have permission to love who you want to love.”
She and Dell split amicably in 2021.
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The celebrity gourmand was 39 years old when she gave birth to Krishna.
How old is Padma Lakshmi’s daughter, Krishna?
Born Feb. 20, 2010, Krishna turned 16 this year. And unlike some teens, she still seems to enjoy her mom’s company. The two make frequent (and funny) appearances together on Lakshmi’s Instagram, and for Krishna’s recent milestone birthday, they took a mother-daughter trip to Miami.
View this post on Instagram“Sometimes we have to not hang out so you can make your bedtime in school,” Lakshmi said in conversation with Krishna for The Cut, underlining their bond. “You make it anyway, but we never want to go to sleep, and we never want to get up in the morning.”
View this post on InstagramLakshmi briefly dated actor Richard Gere in 2020, poet Terrance Hayes in 2021 and black-ish creator Kenya Barris in 2023, although she kept the details of these relationships to herself.
Is Padma Lakshmi currently in a relationship?
Unclear. If the Padma’s All American author is seeing someone, she hasn’t shared that publicly. Some fans have speculated that she’s in a relationship with fellow chef Melissa King, who won Top Chef: All-Stars L.A. in 2020, but she hasn’t confirmed as much.
"Melissa is somebody whose cooking I always loved. She's fun and we enjoy each other's company," Lakshmi told People in October 2025. "She tends to be my plus one sometimes so people will see us on the red carpet together.”
Later that month, she and King stunned fans by going as Gomez and Morticia Addams for Halloween. The costumes were, well, chef’s kiss!
View this post on InstagramNext: Padma's Net Worth in 2026
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