Padma Lakshmi Talks Comedy Career After ‘Top Chef’ Exit

Padma Lakshmi’s post-Top Chef career may veer further into comedy, as the popular former host of the hit reality competition show shops around a comedy series script and continues to host her stand-up comedy night in Brooklyn. 

In a wide-ranging and revealing New Yorker profile, out on Tuesday, Lakshmi tells writer Helen Rosner that the series was developed with Bridesmaids and Spy director Paul Feig, adding that it is a “hard comedy,” but declining to share its title or more about the show’s pitch. Lakshmi plans to produce and star in the series, she told the magazine. 

Lakshmi has managed to become a household name, or at least an icon of the sensual potential of food, over her two decades as host of Bravo‘s Top Chef. She exited the reality competition series in 2023 after 19 seasons, she said, “after much soul searching.” Kristen Kish filled her shoes with the launch of season 21.

Now, Lakshmi is working on a career shift in a moment of “professional uncertainty,” as the New Yorker puts it in a lengthy profile of the Indian American author, model, activist and host. 

At 52, making this slow but steady move into the world of comedy comes after reassessing what Lakshmi says she truly wants from her career and life.

“What attracts me to comedy is the same thing that attracts me to men who are witty,” she said. “It’s the matter of how you want to spend your time.”

Other projects, like her in-limbo Hulu series, Taste the Nation With Padma Lakshmi (plus its accompanying cookbook), in addition to a lingerie collection for Bare Necessities, have been on her plate since exiting Top Chef last summer. Yet chasing laughs is her passion now, and her comedic chops have been apparent for years to any Top Chef viewer who has seen her quick wit on display; or to fans of 30 Rock, who recall her guest spot as a “heightened, ridiculous version of myself,” as she tells the magazine, convinced she’d invented “this new bag that you put around a sandwich to keep it fresh — but it’s clear, so you still get the full visual of the sandwich.” 

In fact, Lakshmi’s career as an actor, which she launched after being discovered by a modeling scout in Madrid as a student, was on an Italian variety show called Domenica In, where, in a co-host role, she’d ham it up by adopting the persona of a fun-loving foreigner with weak Italian language knowledge. She’d later appear in the unintentionally funny Mariah Carey vehicle, Glitter; recently, while exiting the show where she’s made her name, Lakshmi also appeared on Saturday Night Live in a Top Chef parody that skewered the controversies over race and appropriation at Bon Appétit.

Perhaps this invitation to Studio 8H came after SNL’s producers caught “Padma Puts on a Comedy Show,” the stand-up night Lakshmi curated and hosts at a venue in Brooklyn. Born from her distaste for her favorite local venue’s decision to let comic Louis C.K. appear onstage amid his #MeToo exile, the night features comedians of color and LGBTQ talent, including Michelle Wolf and Bowen Yang.

With her stand-up show, Lakshmi is cutting her teeth in comedy — stumbling at times but learning from the experience as she hits the rhythm of each joke and recovers if they land with a thud. The shows are selling out quickly as her legion of fans watch Lakshmi segue into what she intends to be her career’s second act. 

“I don’t care about being the most beautiful woman in the room — I want to be the funniest person in the room,” she tells the magazine. “That’s who stays with you. Beauty is not an accomplishment, but wit is.”