Salman Rushdie’s ex Padma Lakshmi spotted in NYC hours after he was stabbed, here’s a look at his 4 ex-wives
CHAUTAUQUA, NEW YORK: Booker Prize winning Indian-born British-American novelist Salman Rushdie had a complex love life. The 'Midnight's Children' author had married four times ealier but none of them lasted. His last marriage was to Indian-American model Padma Lakshmi. In fact, Lakshmi was spotted out and about in New York City just hours after her ex-husband Rushdie was stabbed, wearing a denim jumper, a face mask, and glasses.
Currently, Rushdie is on a ventilator after being attacked by Hadi Matar, 24, as he was going to present a lecture on stage for the CHQ 2022 event in Chautauqua, near Buffalo in upstate New York, on Friday, August 12. For years after publishing 'The Satanic Verses' in 1988, Rushdie received death threats. The controversial book has been banned in Iran and a $3.3M bounty had been placed on the author's head by Ayatollah Khomenei.
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Clarissa Luard
Rushdie married Clarissa Luard in the year 1976. In 1969, the two met at a concert. While living with the then-unpublished author, she began working as a publicity manager for the London publishing house Paul Elek in 1974. Rushdie was married to Clarissa from 1976 to 1987 and in 1979, had his son Zafar. Rushdie left his first wife in the mid-'80s for the Australian writer Robyn Davidson, who met him through their mutual friend Bruce Chatwin.
Luard died from cancer in 1999. In an interview with Big Issue Magazine in 2016, Rushdie said, "I do have great regret about the end of my first marriage to the mother of my oldest son, Zafar. She sadly passed away when he was 19 years old and, actually, by then we had managed to rebuild a good friendship. On the last day of her life, I was in the hospital holding her hand. The marriage ended but the relationship didn’t." He further added, "We were incredibly young when we got together and over the course of a decade and a half we grew into different people. But we managed a very amicable break-up."
Marianne Wiggins
Following his divorce from Clarissa, Rushdie married the American author Marianne Wiggins in 1988. The couple was in Lodon when the fatwa demanding Rushdie's execution for his book 'The Satanic Verses' was issued. The two went into hiding together before divorcing in 1993.
Wiggins is a well-known author who won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize in 1989 for 'John Dollar'. Her novel 'Evidence of Things Unseen' was a finalist for the prestigious National Book Award in 2003.
Elizabeth West
After his second divorce, Rushdie married fellow author, Elizabeth West in 1997. The two collaborated when she co-edited Rushdie’s book 'Mirrorwork: 50 Years of Indian Writing 1947-1997'. Rushdie had his second son, Milan, with West in the year 1997. The two divorced in 2004.
Padma Lakshmi
Rushdie's fourth marriage to model and Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi was the most contentious. Lakshmi, who is 23 years younger than him, wrote a deriding account of their eight-year relationship in her memoir 'Love, Loss, and What We Ate'. The two first met in 1999 at a lavish New York City party hosted by media mogul Tina Brown. Lakshmi claimed the two had an affair and that Rushdie promised to be with her once his marriage to his third wife was over.
'Fury', Rushdie's 2001 novel, was dedicated to Lakshmi. The pair married in 2004 and divorced in 2007. Lakshmi was 28 at the time of the wedding while Rushdie was 51. Lakshmi portrayed Rushdie in her memoir as an "insecure and insensitive spoilt baby who needed constant praise, feeding, and attention, as well as frequent sex".