Padma Lakshmi, in white bikini, shows off stretch marks as she plays in a pool
Padma Lakshmi is celebrating her body — stretch marks and all.
On Wednesday, the Top Chef host, 51, posted a video to Instagram of herself jumping into a pool and onto a pool float. The star, who is mom to 12-year-old daughter Krishna, wore a white bikini for the pool day. As the camera moved around Lakshmi’s body, it paid special attention to her stretch marks.
"My swamp ass needed this!!!," Lakshmi captioned the carefree video. She added the hashtags #stretchmarksandall and #nofilter.
Lakshmi's followers loved the video. Chef Amanda Haas commented, "YES YES YES YES YES! I think we are all recognizing you are 1000 times hotter/sexier/more beautiful than those gorgeous women who hide because you live comfortably in your skin Padma. What we women tend to focus on as flaws can be some of the most beautiful things about us because they tell our stories! And today, just for you, I'm gonna rock my damn bikini around my house while I work, and then I'm going to jump in my ridiculous blowup pool we bought because it is so hot!"
Another follower added, "I am so happy to see you flaunt stretch marks. You are so beautiful in every way and seeing your stretch marks just made me feel better about mine."
A third wrote, "Stretch marks are our tiger stripes. They represent our courage and our strength."
Lakshmi isn't the only star to celebrate her stretch marks. Last year, Khloé Kardashian showed off her stretch marks in an Instagram post, which she captioned, "I love my stripes." Model Ashley Graham also tweeted a message about appreciating one's stretch marks, writing, "My mom walked in on me putting lotion on my stretch marks this morning. Then she showed me her old stretch marks and reminded me to love myself and be kind to my body. So now I’m reminding you."
While Lakshmi's followers praised this video, Lakshmi told The Cut last year that she has gotten flak before for posting sexier images of herself.
"I'll put up a sexy picture of myself, but I'm proud of looking cute because I've been working out or something, and I get s*** for that,” she said. "It's like, listen, I was a lingerie model. When I was 23, or 24, or 25, nobody said anything negative about me wearing lingerie. Why are you saying that now and it's like the most tame picture?"
She said that people thought she was “exploiting myself or fishing or compliments."
"Everybody has an opinion, and it's easy on social media because you can hide behind your handle," she explained. "It's hard to remember who you are in those situations and not have the conversation devolve to their level. Stay calm, take a breath, don't take it personally, and just respond in your voice. But on the whole, I've been lucky; I haven't had too much of a problem. But there's always the delete button."
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