Indian-origin model is said to be dating the ‘Chicago’ star.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: Model, actress, and socialite Padma Lakshmi has found herself a new beau: Hollywood actor Richard Gere.
Rumors began swirling last week that the Lakshmi (43) was seeing the 64 year-old actor, with reports indicating that the two were seeing each other behind closed doors and were trying to keep the affair secret. Both Lakshmi and Gere are in New York City, and while neither party has openly confirmed the relationship, People Magazine cited a source close to them who said they’re “getting to know each other.”
Gere, who is shooting the film Time Out of Mind in the Big Apple, is coming off the dissolution of his second marriage to Carey Lowell, the Bond girl from 1989’s Licence to Kill, who he married in 2002 and separate from last year. Previously, he was married to singer Cindy Crawford, from 1991-1995.
Lakshmi has had a number of relationships over the years, but married author Salman Rushdie in 2003; the union ended in 2007. She later dated Adam Dell, of Dell Computers, and has a three year-old daughter with him named Krishna Thea Lakshmi, whom she has custody over. Lakshmi also dated billionaire (and former lover of Princess Diana) Teddy Forstmann until he passed away from brain cancer three years ago.
While Lakshmi and Gere have yet to be spotted together in public, Lakshmi has been getting close with actress Susan Sarandon. The two were spotted together at the Time 100 cocktail party in New York City earlier this week, according to Vulture, and are apparently very good friends. Sarandon and Gere are also good friends, lending further credence to the theory that Lakshmi and Gere now have some connection.
This wouldn’t be Gere’s first dalliance with an Indian woman. He courted controversy in the recent past for planting a kiss on actress Shilpa Shetty during an event, and is set to appear later this year in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel 2, the sequel to the 2011 sleeper hit about a group of senior citizens who vacation in India.
An actor since 1975, Gere has starred in a plethora of famous films, including Days of Heaven (1978), An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), Pretty Woman (1990), and Chicago (2002), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture and garnered Gere a Golden Globe award for Best Actor.
Born in Chennai and raised both there and in New York City, Lakshmi eventually came to California at a young age. She graduated from Workman High School in Malibu, and then graduated in 1992 with a B.A. (with honors) in theatre arts from Massachusetts’ Clark University. She began modelling at age 18, and gradually segued into acting, appearing in films such as The Mistress of Spices (2004) and the Bollywood film Boom (2003), which is perhaps best remembered as Katrina Kaif’s debut.
Lakshmi can be seen as a judge on Bravo TV’s “Top Chef.”