INFphoto.comPadma Lakshmi's baby daddy drama is getting quite dramatic.
That's according to a friend of Adam Dell, the Top Chef host's ex and father of her 11-month-old daughter, Krishna, who claims that Lakshmi seems more interested in moving on without Dell in the picture.
"There is no interest [on Padma's end] in having Adam see the baby," Dell's friend alleges. "Adam doesn't know what she's thinking, but he has no interest in resuming a romantic relationship with Padma. He just wants to see his baby."
And he'll settle for joint custody, according to his lawyer.
"Adam didn't want to go to court," his attorney, Williams Zabel, tells E! News. "He is a pretty private person but we were being so stonewalled in negotiating a fair custody and coparenting agreement that we had no option but to go to court. We still hope that going to court will lead to reasonable negotiation and settlement of a coparenting agreement. "
For her part, "Ms. Lakshmi believes that family matters should be kept private," a spokeswoman for the cookbook author and former model said. "She asks that those who join her in wanting the best for her daughter do the same."
Dell has limited custody at the moment, about seven hours a week, his lawyer says. Since a prior agreement expired on Dec. 20, he had to follow his ex to the Bahamas this month, where Lakshmi was filming, in order to see Krishna.
"He takes advantage of the few limited rights he has," says Zabel. "He is unmarried. He has no other children and she has become the light of his life. There is nothing more important to him than to get full and fair access and to be part of the child's life."
Dell is also looking to have his name added to Krishna's birth certificate.
Lakshmi did not initially name the father, intentionally remaining mum for some time after Krishna's birth, prompting Dell to demand a DNA test to prove the child was his, which the test confirmed.
His complaint, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, also alleges that Lakshmi has encouraged her daughter to refer to Lakshmi's current beau, IMG exec Teddy Forstmann, as "Papa," as well as claims Lakshmi has given the child a middle name that seems to be a nod to Forstmann's full name, Theodore.
Which is perfectly reasonable, a source close to Forstmann tells E! News.
"[Forstmann] has been fulfilling the role of Krishna's dad, and he has been since the moment Krishna was delivered," says the source. "She went from Padma to the doctor to him. [Forstmann] is not an interloper. The relationship was there long before Adam Dell [was there]."
Lakshmi's attorney says that they're looking forward to setting the record straight.
"Ms. Lakshmi looks forward to correcting the record in the courts, not the press," attorney Jay Silverstein told the New York Daily News. "She is saddened and gravely disappointed that Mr. Dell has chosen a very public means of filing his petition with the court rather than doing so in a confidential or sealed manner which is customary in cases involving a very young child."
As they say on Bravo, watch what happens.
—Additional reporting by Natalie Finn
(Originally published Jan. 26, 2011, at 3:32 p.m. PT)