Top Chef just isn’t going to be the same without Padma Lakshmi. Although the show is in capable hands with new host Kristen Kish, we’ll still miss Padma! Change is hard, and seventeen years is a long time to host a show.
When Padma announced that she was departing the show after Season 20, she released a pretty bland statement about why she was leaving. Now that the dust has settled from the initial announcement, she’s getting real about her exit from the award-winning reality competition show. There was more to the story. There always is.
Padma’s unofficial exit interview
Padma’s initial announcement regarding her Top Chef exit sounded like it came straight off the desk from someone’s public relations department.
“After much soul searching, I have made the difficult decision to leave Top Chef,” she wrote on social media at the time. She also explained that she wanted to make more space for her other show, Taste the Nation, in addition to other “creative pursuits.”
Now, Padma is speaking more candidly about her Top Chef exit. On Variety’s Awards Circuit podcast, she admitted that some more “complex factors” led to her departure that she wouldn’t discuss. However, she said the main reason that she left was because she just needed some downtime. Apparently, hosting Top Chef and Taste the Nation was way more intense than anyone would have thought.
“I had been on location for eight months out of the year. And when I wasn’t on location, I was in pre- and post-production for both my shows,” Padma explained. “And I was looking at edits of one show while on the set of another show. It was just exhausting and untenable for me to continue that way.”
But then, her reasoning for leaving got even better. She revealed that the intense work schedule was getting in the way of her finding a new boo. Padma is single and ready to mingle, and Top Chef was getting in the way. She had no choice but to pack her knives and go!
“I haven’t had a relationship in a long time either, because I’m always working. I don’t know when I think I was going to meet anybody,” she explained. Padma added a showmance would have definitely been out of the question.
“I’m surrounded by people I either employ or employ me, and neither of those [groups of] people are appropriate [for a romantic relationship],” Padma explained on the podcast.
Good for her for choosing her work-life balance. And we know she will land a date in no time with all of this newfound free time on her hands. Let’s hope the new host, Kristen, is ready to kiss her free time goodbye.
There’s yet to be an official premiere date for Season 21 of Top Chef, but it should air on Bravo in early 2024.
TELL US – WOULD YOU HAVE LEFT YOUR LONGTIME ROLE IF YOU WERE IN PADMA’S SHOES? DO YOU THINK KRISTEN WILL BE A GOOD REPLACEMENT FOR PADMA?
Coming home again.
No hush money for Kristen.
Can the crew hold it together?