‘Top Chef’ Host Padma Lakshmi Ends Romance With Actor Richard Gere [Video]

Rumors that Richard Gere would choose Padma Lakshmi as his third Pretty Woman wife have been slashed faster than a chef’s knife on Top Chef. A professional model and cookbook author, Padma has become one of the main reasons to tune into Top Chef. But although she loves helming the reality cooking competition, Lakshmi has made it clear that she’s not in love with Gere, revealed E! News.

Although both celebrities try to avoid the media spotlight, they publicly began dating six months ago. Gere is 64, while Padma is 44, and the 20-year age difference may have made them decide that they are better as pals than partners, said a source.

“[Gere and Lakshmi] decided they would be better as friends,” said the insider.

Padma has stated repeatedly that she is single, joking about her life without mentioning the break-up during recent appearances on the Today show and The Ellen DeGeneres Show (see below).

Gere and Lakshmi began their short romance soon after he broke up with Carey Lowell, to whom he had been married for 11 years, noted Page Six. Prior to that, Richard was married to model Cindy Crawford for four years.

Padma had previously divorced author Salman Rushdie before dating billionaire Teddy Forstmann. After he tragically died of brain cancer in 2011, she dated and had a daughter with Adam Dell. Named Krishna Thea Lakshmi-Dell, the little girl is now 3-years-old.

In his book Joseph Anton: A Memoir, Rushdie was cruel about his years with Padma, pointed out Eater.

“She was capable of saying things of such majestic narcissism that he didn’t know whether to bury his head in his hands or applaud. When the Indian movie star Aishwarya Rai was named the most beautiful Indian woman in the world in some glossy magazine or other, for example, Padma announced, in a room full of people, that she had ‘serious issues with that.’ Her moodiness was unpredictable and extreme.”

While Rushdie publicized his disdain for Padma Lakshmi, Richard Gere kept his romance as private as possible, as The Inquisitr noted.

“It started very recently and quietly. It’s very new. I wouldn’t even go as far as calling them a couple,” said a source at the time.

So what caused the two to break up? A source told Page Six that both have been very busy with work, and their careers take them on very different paths.

While Gere devoted his summer to filming Time Out of Mind, playing a homeless man, Padma is occupied with delving into the delights of the dishes concocted on Top Chef. She confessed to The Huffington Post that she gains 10 to 15 pounds each season. As a result, Lakshmi has to spend time when she’s not filming in the gym while depriving herself of her favorite foods on a strict diet.

When I’m off of ‘Top Chef,’ you know, I gain 10 or 15 pounds every season, and what it takes me six weeks to gain, it takes me 12 weeks to lose. Because your body actually holds on to fat more when it feels like it’s deprived of fat. So you want to lose weight slowly and as hard as that is sometimes to wait for, it’s much healthier. You don’t want to drop and gain weight all the time. That’s one of the hardest and, you know, main drawbacks from my job is that my weight yo-yos.

[Image Via www.bravotv.com]