Not one to sugarcoat, Padma Lakshmi calls Donald Trump ‘racist buffoon’

Lakshmi, 45, who moved from India to New York as a child, said she is particularly bothered by Trump’s controversial views on immigration.

Former model and TV personality Padma Lakshmi says she would never vote for Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump.

Lakshmi, 45, who moved from India to New York as a child, said she is particularly bothered by Trump’s controversial views on immigration. (Agencies)

“Even if he wasn’t the racist buffoon that he is making himself out to be, I probably wouldn’t vote for him,” Lakshmi said.

“But as an immigrant, I obviously don’t see his worldview as mine,” she told Variety.

Lakshmi, 45, who moved from India to New York as a child, said she is particularly bothered by Trump’s controversial views on immigration.

Padma Lakshmi participates in AOL's BUILD Speaker Series to discuss the upcoming finale of Top Chef and her memoir Love, Loss and What We Ate at AOL Studios. (Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

“We are a country of immigrants, so to say you should put a wall up or limit certain ethnicities is sort of antithetical to what this country is about,” she said.

“He himself is of an immigrant decent. Unless you are from the Cherokee nation, your ancestors are immigrants so you may be an umpteenth generation immigrant but there you are, squatting on someone else’s land.”

Read: Ex-wife Padma Lakshmi slams Rushdie in memoir, calls him sexually needy

The former wife of author Salman Rushdie noted that because she runs the women’s health organisation, she has been paying close attention to Trump’s recent comments on reproductive rights specifically, that women receiving abortions should be punished.

“I think he is insane. I think he’s blabbing, I don’t think he really knows what he is saying, I am not even sure he really believes that a woman shouldn’t have a right to choose. But I can only judge someone by what they say.”