Is Rushdie's love story all over?

11 April 2012
The Weekender

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Salman Rushdie's marriage of three years is in trouble, according to reports.

His wife Padma Lakshmi is said to have been telling friends she is leaving the Booker-prize winning novelist, who is 26 years her senior.

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Salman Rushdie and Padma Lakshmi were nicknamed Beauty and the Beast. They are rumoured to be on the verge of a split

News of a possible split between the couple nicknamed Beauty and the Beast emerged in a respected New York broadsheet newspaper.

Dress designer Diane von Furstenberg, who attended their wedding in 2004, was overheard talking about her shock at the breakup.

The New York Observer claimed Miss von Furstenberg, a close friend of Miss Lakshmi's, was overheard saying repeatedly: "I can't believe she's leaving him."

The New York Post, following up the story, said there had been no denials.

The Observer speculated that Miss Lakshmi, a model and actress who is making a name on American television as the host of reality show Top Chef, wants to focus on her career.

"Most troubling to Ms von Furstenberg, apparently, was Ms Lakshmi's stated and not exactly literary reason for putting an end to the relationship with the Booker Prize winner – to focus on her big TV hit, Top Chef," the Observer's columnist, Spencer Morgan stated.

This is not the first time that Rushdie's fourth marriage has faced such public scrutiny.

Both he and his wife have repeatedly denied that the 59-year-old 5ft 7in writer is with the 5ft 11in model for her looks while she is attracted to his wealth and fame.

Four years ago they went to the trouble of releasing a statement denying Miss Lakshmi found Rushdie "boring" or that he thought she wasn't "intellectually stimulating enough". Last year, the author – who was put under an Islamic fatwa or death sentence for his novel The Satanic Verses in 1989– admitted that their lifestyles meant that they were rarely together.

While Miss Lakshmi, 36, was in Los Angeles making Top Chef for the Bravo network, Rushdie remained in London. As a result, the couple had been together for only three weeks in four months.

"I do miss her, it is the hardest thing because the person you want to talk to is the person who is not there," he said at the time.

"But at the same time I am very proud of her, she is a fantastic, unusual brilliant woman, just coming into her own.

"In the last couple of years, everything has opened out for her."

Last night publicists for Miss Lakshmi and Rushdie declined to comment.

The couple met at a party in 1999 while Rushdie was married to his third wife, Elizabeth West, the mother of his two-year-old son.

Miss West later divorced him on the grounds of adultery.

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