Padma Lakshmi Opens up About Decision to Speak About her Rape

The “Top Chef” host said she revealed details about being raped 32 years ago in an op-ed because “it deserves more than a hashtag.”

Padma Lakshmi said even though she decided to open up about being raped as a teenager, so many other sexual assault victims stay quiet about their trauma because they fear being forever defined by the experience.

“I have a show that’s Emmy nominated. I have a child. I have a foundation for women’s reproductive health. I’m with the ACLU and I speak on their behalf for immigration — I don’t want to be known as that girl from that cooking show who was raped,” Lakshmi said in an exclusive interview with TODAY Monday.

The “Top Chef” host in September described in a New York Times op-ed how at 16 she was raped while she slept by her 23-year-old boyfriend. The piece ran after sexual assault allegations were raised during the Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Brett Kavanaugh, who was accused of assaulting university professor Christine Blasey Ford when they were both teens.

Lakshmi has described opening up about her ordeal as similar to ripping off a 32-year-old bandage. But she said she feels it helped give a voice to so many others in similar positions.

“I did what many millions of women, and a lot of men, do. We just bury it. We just push it down so far deep inside and hope that it will be so buried that it probably didn’t happen,” she said. “We try to erase what happened to us and the only way to truly erase that trauma is to really confront it in whatever ways is appropriate for that person.”

Lakshmi said she never thought of herself as a political person even though she has found herself speaking out on a variety of issues in recent years.

(Excerpt) Read More at: Today.com