In an interview to Playboy magazine, where the Chennai born supermodel appears in a series of revealing photographs, the 42-year-old celebrity has praised her ex-husband, who is 23-years her senior.

"Now there is somebody who has great wit and is a great flirt. I don't regret a day I spent with Salman, but it was tiring. He has a big life, and it only got bigger when we were together. I'm happy to have stood next to him holding his hand, but we were in very different parts of our lives."

The marriage of Lakshmi and Mumbai born author had baffled many as Rushdie is not known for his good looks while the supermodel has made a career out of her looks.

"Comments like that came out of ignorance. If you saw us together you would know exactly why we were together."

The couple's marriage lasted three years until 2007, with Padma going on to have a baby daughter Krishna, now two-years-old, by computer mogul Adam Dell.

Rushdie, 65, is not so generous about his fourth ex-wife in his recently published memoir 'Joseph Anton'.

Describing her as 'Millenarian Illusion', Rushdie has painted Lakshmi as someone who was ambitious and celebrity-seeking. Rushdie said Padma's beauty swept him over because she "seemed to contain his Indian past and his American future."

"She was capable of saying things of such majestic narcissism.... her moodiness was unpredictable and extreme." She was ambitious and was determined to strike out for