New York, April 17: Supermodel, popular TV host,Emmy award nominee, these are few of Padma Lakshmi’s achievements but the India born beauty says that her way up was tough being a woman of colour and an immigrant.
The ‘Top Chef’ who moved to the US while still ateenager said that she has worked hard her for all that she has today, reported New York Daily News online.
“I have been working hard all my life ever since I gotout of college to build a career with my own hands and own mind. Being an immigrant in the country, being a woman ofcolor, it’s an effort,”said Lakshmi who has been a resident of New York for the past two decades.
But the 41-year-old said that her ethnicity is not thecore of her life.
“I don’t get up in the morning thinking,’I’m an Indian ‘or ‘I’m a woman or ‘I’m a person of color’. I get up thinking,’Alright, what can I do to accomplish what I find interesting in the world?’I never start from a place of my ethnicity or my gender, I start from a place of ambition and just curiosity about the world,”she said.
The model-actress said that her personal life has often unjustly overshadowed her professional work. Lakshmi’s marriage and divorce from Booker prize winner Salman Rushdie, her ongoing custody battle with her1-year-old daughter Krishna’s father and her relationship with billionaire Ted Forstmann, has made her life tabloid fodder.
“First of all, a lot of what you read is just plainuntrue, and then a lot of it is really personal so I can’teven defend myself,”said the model.
–Source: Indiareport