By most accounts, Salman Rushdie seems to be a nice guy. It would hardly appear that the celebrated author is prone to violence. But when it came to protecting his wife Padma Lakshmi's reputation, Rushdie reportedly threatened to beat up a New York Times reporter with a baseball bat.
It all started when NYT reporter Guy Trebay wrote a column on Lakshmi earlier this month. Trebay's strongly worded column 'Brand-Name Goddess Basks in the Moment' -- published on February 8 -- compared Lakshmi to the Hindu goddess she was named after.
'One of the cool things about the goddess Lakshmi is her unabashed relationship to prosperity,' Trebay wrote. 'In the current fashion pantheon, Ms Lakshmi similarly stands for a love of money and commodity. A burgeoning brand married to a global brand, she has no problem making public an inventory of brands she chooses to wear to fashion shows.'
The column then itemised designer clothes, accessories and jewellery pieces all free of charge -- which Lakshmi wore at the various Fashion Week events. Trebay referred to celebrities such as Lakshmi as freeloaders and brand pimps, a very special element of the fashion scene. Still, while they are all used to special treatment, Trebay saw one difference between Lakshmi and the rest of the lot.
'She is closer to the breed of celebrity who will actually crack open a wallet every once in a while than the more prevalent type one tends to encounter now,' he wrote. 'A semicelebrated hustler Ms Lakshmi may be. But at least she has celebrity bona fides.'
Naturally, Rushdie was mad as hell. British publications The Times and The Sun reported that the India-born author approached Trebay at a New York function and screamed at him: 'If you ever write mean things about my wife again, I'll come after you with a baseball bat!'
