15 celebrities who got political in 2018

15. Padma Lakshmi

It’s not as if Padma Lakshmi, author, actor, and television host, is the first-ever celebrity to get political this year. But, while she may not have run for office, her vocal political opinions earn her a spot on this list. Anyone who publicly and repeatedly calls Donald Trump a “menace to society” has a good start, anyway.

Lakshmi has an outspoken past when it comes to both politics and social issues. She decried the return of comedian Louis C.K., who had stepped away from the public light after multiple women stepped forward with serious sexual assault allegations made against him. Lakshmi also wrote about her work hosting Bravo’s Top Chef, especially when viewers critiqued the seeming dominance of male contestants in the show’s early seasons. Lakshmi has since said that she and the show’s producers have worked hard to have an equal number of female and male contestants.

But it was immigration that brought Padma Lakshmi’s political opinions into the public eye in 2018. This was the year that the Trump administration, especially under United States Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, came under fire for the policy of family separation. Immigrants entering illegally into the United States at the U.S.-Mexico border, who were then detained, were frequently separated. Families, even those with young children, were no exception. Much was made of the detention facilities set aside for these children and the long-term trauma of their being forcibly taken away from their families.

Lakshmi, who moved between the United States and India as a child and eventually grew up in Los Angeles, had much to say about the immigration policy. She wrote of waiting for her mother, who moved to the United States when she was only two. Even though Lakshmi was safely living with her family in India, she still recalls it as a striking and emotional experience that influenced her choice to speak out.