In a 2018 essay for
The New York Times, Lakshmi revealed that she was raped by her older boyfriend when she was 16, which she did not report. She stated that her decision to keep silent about the rape resulted from her stepfather's relative assaulting her when she was seven years old. After she told her mother and stepfather about his assault, they sent her to live with her grandparents for a year. She wrote, "The lesson was: If you speak up, you will be cast out." She said, "I am speaking now because I want us all to fight so that our daughters never know this fear and shame and our sons know that girls' bodies do not exist for their pleasure and that abuse has grave consequences."
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