Padma Lakshmi said is was "mortifying" back in 2010 when the press was speculating about the identity of her unborn child's father, especially since she wasn't completely sure who it was.
On a new episode of PEOPLE's podcast "Me Becoming Mom," the "Top Chef" host described the media attention as "icky."
"I was sort of between relationships without going into the specifics. It definitely complicated the situation, and as we know, our society is a patriarchal society, so I knew that it was not the ideal way, obviously, to be in the situation I was in," she said. "I was just happy. That stuff was certainly there. It was in the background, it was always like a white noise presence. It certainly was icky when the press started snooping around in various countries — not just America, but in India, England, Australia. At that time, it was splashed all over the newspapers and it was mortifying."
Still, Padma, who welcomed daughter Krishna Thea with Adam Dell, tried to keep things in perspective.
"It was inconsequential because the main event was that I was going to be a mom," she noted.
Padma, 50, and Adam began dating in 2009. However, she and Adam weren't exclusive, as she was also seeing billionaire Teddy Forstmann.
In her memoir, "Love, Loss and What We Ate," Padma said she didn't know the identity of Krishna's father for months. When she told both men that she was pregnant, Teddy had a visceral reaction.
"I saw his face go white, then beet red," she wrote in the book. "It was as if the room could not contain him, or as if his body could not contain his fury at the information he had just received."
After the paternity test revealed he was not the father, Teddy still offered to raise the child as his own.
"He wasn't going to leave my side," Padma wrote. "Maybe he didn't know if he could stay in a romantic relationship with me or not. I think neither of us knew what was going to happen but he was resolute in making sure I wasn't alone. He held my hand and he held it very publicly."