In her memoir, Padma Lakshmi covered her pregnancy exhaustively, including the debate that centered around the paternity of her daughter, Krishna. Some time after her divorce from Salman Rushdie, she had been seeing both Theodore "Teddy" Forstmann, CEO of IMG, and Adam Dell, a venture capitalist. It was only after her affair with Dell that Lakshmi realized she was pregnant and, after a paternity test was taken, realized it was his baby. She was still with Forstmann, who was a couple of decades older than her, and he offered to raise the child as his own. However, the television host wanted Dell to be aware (and as involved as he liked).
After Dell's name failed to appear on Krishna's birth certificate, he was furious, according to Lakshmi's book. Dell sued her in 2011, and they entered into a nearly two-year-long custody battle over Krishna. The case was eventually settled out of court in March 2012 when Krishna's last name was amended to Lakshmi-Dell, in order to reflect her father's involvement in her life. A source told People at the time, "Padma basically said it was fine to add his name, but she retains all decision-making power, which is really what matters most to her. She makes all the decisions on education, health, everything." The source added that Lakshmi will continue to let her daughter and Dell spend time together, as it was never much of an issue for her to begin with.
