Report: Padma Lakshmi bids Richard Gere adieu

After an intensely private six-month romance, things are over between Richard Gere and Padma Lakshmi, Page Six has learned.

The 44-year-old “Top Chef” host was recently asked in a television interview about her love life, and confirmed she is single. We’re told the couple recently “decided they would be better as friends,” according to a source, who adds that both had been busy with work.

Gere, 65, was this summer filming Oren Moverman’s “Time Out of Mind,” in which he plays a homeless man on the streets of New York. The movie screened this past weekend as part of the New York Film Festival and the Hamptons International Film Festival.

Speaking at the Film Society of Lincoln Center last week, Gere said the film is one of the projects he is most proud of during his long career.

He also joked that “what probably really helped was I was right in the middle of a divorce [from Carey Lowell], so the emotions were right on the surface.”

Page Six exclusively revealed in April that Gere and Lakshmi began dating after he had split with Lowell, his wife of 11 years. A source told us at the time, “They have been quietly spending some time together. It is all very new and recent.” The couple remained low key and were only spotted out together in public a few times.

Go to Page Six for more.