Polymorphously Perverse Padma Turns Gay Man Straight, Achieves Cold Fusion

First of all, just be thankful we didn't start with the nekkid picture of Padma slathered in war paint.

In the picture we have chosen, Padma does have a bit of that "Oops, I Did It Again" or "Home Alone" expression. So what has she done this time? Nothing less than bringing about a miracle.

In today's edition of his blog, our beloved, button-eyed Bravo exec Andy Cohen confesses, "I think Padma Lakshmi is maybe, kind of, making me straight. It could be happening. I am keeping her abreast of any movement as it happens, and I will update this situation as need be on the blog, but it creeps up on me. It is, as one might say, a Satanic Verse."

Color us Travolta'd with surprise. Who knew Padma was the new Kelly Preston? Who knew Padma could have saved Reverend Haggard, and Mark Foley, and Lance Bass, and T.R. Knight, and Doogie Howser? A woman whose one extramarital desire is for a lesbian tryst with Stephanie Seymor turning a gay man straight? We don't remember anything like this happening when Katie Lee Joel was the hostess. Padma has thus convincingly established her supremacy over what one Amuse-Biatch reader called Billy Joel's "wooden-faced child bride."

Should we have seen the signs? we ask ourselves. As she told Andy, as a child, her favorite comic book character was Modesty Blaise, she on the cleavage-baring, painted-on bodysuits. She also claims to be reading a biography of Simone de Beauvoir, Tête-à-Tête, which our favorite book critic, Michael Dirda of The Washington Post, described as “a highbrow Francophile edition of US Weekly.” Wait, does that make Salman Rushdie Jean-Paul Sartre? And do they, as the real Simone and Jean-Paul did, sometimes share female lovers? Well, yesterday's post about Stephanie Seymour rather does beg the question, don't it? (For his part, Chef Colicchio wryly says that he is reading “Shalimar the Clown by Mr. Lakshmi.”)

We are at a loss. Should we stop watching "Top Chef," just in case? Should we notify the authorities in San Francisco, New York and West Hollywood? Is Bravo, known as the Gay Network, in danger of becoming the Ex-Gay Network?

At any rate, we will keep you posted on this story as it progresses. Please report any further Padma miracles to us, and we will notify the Vatican, the Republicans and the Scientologists.

Update: When told of this, Miss XaXa had a message for Ole Button Eyes: "Andy, honey, just because you're intrigued by a woman with a taste for high heels, plunging necklines, Sapphic tendencies, and a vaguely Eurotrash accent doesn't make you straight. It makes you even gayer. Need we mention Marlene Dietrich and a bunch of other drag queens out there? Hello?!" Although, never one to look a gift horse in the hind quarters, Miss XaXa considered the effects of the prolonged Padma exposure on Chef Carlos and wondered, Might he now be receptive to her advances?