“Thank you to the illustrious “@nydailynews” for the shoutout 😉 I know to some we all look alike, but…,” wrote the 49-year-old celebrity model and TV host, sharing a screen-grab that shows her black-and-white portrait with Priyanka’s Instagram account mistakenly tagged on it.
But while Lakshmi seemingly took no offence and reacted with playful sarcasm, many of her followers were shocked and saddened by what they saw as a shining example of casual racism.
“Brown girl… name starts with P… yup that’s her,” one user wrote, amid a torrent of ‘OMGs’ and ‘WOWs’.
Others said the author of the now-deleted Instagram post must’ve been blind, noting that the women look nothing alike – and both are gorgeous in totally different ways.
And only a handful of eagle-eyed followers noticed the counterpunch…
“Hahahahaha! I see what you did there,” wrote one person who spotted Lakshmi taking her small revenge by tagging the New Yorker as the ‘NY Daily News’ – in quotes, to make it obvious that her ‘mistake’ was intentional.