Padma Lakshmi's favorite part of her body is a seven-inch scar on her forearm from a car accident at the age of 14 that occurred in Malibu Canyon.
"I love it because it makes me a person who has an interesting past, and it reminds me that I can survive any pain," the Top Chef siren reveals in the May annual nude issue of Allure magazine.
Sharing her ordeal in a past Vogue 2001 magazine issue, Padma writes, "The accident happened on a Sunday afternoon filled with sunshine. I was fourteen years old and on my way back with my parents from a Hindu temple in Malibu. The traffic was quite heavy for a Sunday. I remember thinking how strange that was. Then there was a loud bang, and I looked out the windshield and saw nothing but the prettiest blue sky. I thought I was dreaming because I'd been nodding off, but then I realized we were part of that blue sky. Our red Ford Mercury sedan was airborne. Flying in a car felt like an exhilarating hallucination, an unbelievable ride that oddly remains one of the most beautiful images in my memory. "
Lakshmi, 38, says she has no problem being photographed in such a way. "I didn't feel any more naked without my robe. I don't have any stigma attached to my body. When I'm in my own private space, I have very little on."
Other stars participated in the magazine's layout including chat show host Chelsea Handler, Dollhouse's Eliza Dushku, actress Sharon Leal and Lynn Collins, from X-Men Origins: Wolverine, also posed. All five say they were comfortable being nude.
"I'll strip down to my underwear and my Ugg boots when I eat lunch in my trailer," Dushku, 28, says.
Handler, a comic who lights up late night chat shows with her spirited roundtables and unique approach to interviewing, was particularly proud of her breasts: "My boobs are good," says the Handler, 34. "They're real and perky. Even if you can't see them, the important thing is that I know about them, and the guys I've slept with know about them."
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