Domestic Dispute

Padma Lakshmi Feuds With Baby Daddy

Father fights for custody of 1-year-old daughter.

Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi won't let the father of her almost-1-year-old near the little girl. Why? She thinks he's an "unambitious" man with an "uninteresting career" and boring friends, according to a lawsuit the father, venture capitalist Adam Dell, filed in hope of obtaining custody. Lakshmi supposedly let him see her daughter, Krishna, the day after her birth last year, but then barred him from contact. When she was pregnant, Lakshmi told Dell that she hoped the child wasn't his. A DNA test proved he was the father, and he tried to discuss the baby's name and how the two would raise her together. But Lakshmi blew him off and, he later discovered, left him off her daughter's birth certificate. As a final insult, she's teaching little Krishna to call her new boyfriend "papa."