It appears Padma Lakshmi is celebrating Hot Poet Summer by smooching Terrance Hayes.
I’ve long waited for the day that my Top Chef/poetry fanfiction would be realized IRL, and it appears that day has arrived. And friends, it is glorious. It appears that ageless host and cookbook author Padma Lakshmi is celebrating New York’s reopening (and her recent breakup) by smooching the brilliant, award-winning, and, it must be said, extremely handsome, poet, Terrance Hayes.
The New York Post published pictures of the smooches, describing Hayes only as an “unidentified mystery man.” Okay, he won the National Book Award and was a Macarthur Fellow, come on.
The writer Jean Chen Ho corrected the error on Twitter.
Padma is LIVING!!!! Normalize leaving venture capitalist for brilliant handsome poet I love this Gemini season energy so muchhttps://t.co/1QQ3GTXAFn
— Jean Chen Ho (@jeanho) June 16, 2021
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Congratulations to Padma Lakshmi, and happy Hot Poet Summer to all who celebrate!
Jessie Gaynor
Jessie Gaynor is a senior editor at Lit Hub whose writing has appeared in McSweeney's, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. Her debut novel, The Glow was published by Random House in 2023. You can buy it here.
