Padma Lakshmi On Challenges In Showbiz For A Brown Woman: 'Those Bullies Helped Me Develop A Thick Skin'

The 'Top Chef' host and the writer-creator of 'Taste The Nation' Padma Lakshmi spoke at length about insecurities in the showbiz and how she built her life from the best opportunities she had at hand.

The 'Top Chef' host and the writer-creator of 'Taste The Nation' Padma Lakshmi spoke at length about insecurities in the showbiz and how she built her life from the best opportunities she had at hand.

Source : Instagram/@padmalakshmi

New Delhi: Padma Lakshmi is an inspiration not just to the women from the Indian diaspora in the United States but also to women across the world. However, trying to make a career in the 90s as a brown girl in the entertainment industry, let alone a TV show, was a very difficult struggle. The 'Top Chef' host and the writer-creator of 'Taste The Nation' spoke at length about insecurities in the showbiz and how she built her life from the best opportunities she had at hand.

Padma Lakshmi in conevrsation with host Veer Sanghvi shed some light on the struggles of making it big in the showbiz, the insecurities that come along in a rather candid session at ABP Network's 'Ideas of India 2024' Summit.

Here are excerpts from her conversation.

On being bullied, publically shamed and developing a thick skin to survive in showbiz

I think the things that happen to you when you're young person, they seem and they are genuinely very difficult. But if I look back on my life, and I'm not just saying this to be virtuous, I think those bullies I really do because it was a great training ground, and they helped me develop a thick skin and when you're a woman, especially a brown woman in entertainment, believe me, the first thing you need is a really thick skin.

I knew that the barriers to achieving what I wanted to do would be more plentiful and higher than somebody else. I didn't know about the business. I learned everything the hard way, which is again, why I make it my business to mentor a few women in their 20s and 30s. So that they don't have it as difficult as I had it.

Padma Lakshmi also belives that one does really need to go through all the hardships of life in order to become resilient.

She added, "I didn't come from money. My mother is a retired nurse my stepfather is a plumber, you know, is a very working class existence. But I do think that all of the difficulties that I had, whether it was my car accident, whether it was being publicly shamed at times in the media also that those things made me who I am and I don't think I would be a strong today. I don't believe that you have to go through hardship in order to become resilient. In my case, that was the training ground that I had."