Padma Lakshmi Shares Her High School Yearbook Photo, Complete with Curly Bangs

When Bravo's Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi wants to post a throwback photo on Instagram, she's got plenty to choose from in her modeling portfolio (as in Elle Italia photoshoots and Roberto Cavalli ad campaigns). But Padma went way back with her latest Instagram flashback.

As a nod to the ongoing Los Angeles teachers strike, the Top Chef judge dug out her yearbook from LA's William Workman High School. "Value kids, value teachers. Our future depends on it," she wrote, calling out the teachers who changed her life. "I wouldn’t be the writer or human I am without the guidance, insight, and enlightenment of my high school teachers."

That caption went along with a yearbook photo of Padma from her sophomore year. Aww! The always-gorgeous Padma clearly didn't have an awkward phase as a teenager, but she did go through a curly bangs era.

It might say "Lakshmi, Padma" on her yearbook, but that wasn't the only name Padma went by in high school: she revealed last year that she briefly went by the name "Angelique" because she was tired of people mispronouncing her name. No one does that now!