What Attracted Padma Lakshmi To Salman Rushdie?

Nov. 15 2012, Published 2:00 p.m. ET

Padma Lakshmi opens up to Playboy on her former May-December marriage to writer Salman Rushdie, claiming she wasn't bothered by the whispers she heard as a rich and gorgeous TV star wed to the paunchy Satanic Verses author more than 20 years her senior.

"Comments like that came out of ignorance," the Top Chef star says. "If you saw us together you would know exactly why we were together."

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Padma says Salman "is somebody who has great wit and is a great flirt" and that she doesn't regret a day of the three years they were married, though she admits, "it was tiring.

"He has a big life, and it only got bigger when we were together," the India-born former model, 42, said. "I’m happy to have stood next to him holding his hand, but we were in very different parts of our lives."

Padma, who shares her 2-year-old girl Krishna with baby daddy Adam Dell, also gives her take on sex in the Q&A, saying that it's only as good as the attraction between the partners.