Anthony Bourdain was a chef, writer, and world traveller who charmed practically everyone
he met in his remarkable life. But beneath the glamour, he was a complex and emotional
person who felt the weight of the world on his shoulders. This is the tragic truth about
Anthony Bourdain's life.
By all accounts, Anthony Bourdain had a relatively normal American childhood, growing up in the
'60s and '70s in suburban New Jersey. But Bourdain admitted that he never quite felt
normal in this "normal" environment. He told NPR in 2017,
"I was an angry kid. For whatever reason, I was definitely a very angry, bitter, nihilistic,
destructive and self-destructive kid."
Part of it stems from Bourdain's lifelong itch to get the most he possibly could out
of life, be it good, bad, or ugly.
He explained to The Guardian in 2013,
"I was rebellious and bitter that I wasn't old enough to be in San Francisco, dropping
acid... I had impeccable taste in rock 'n' roll for a 10-year-old, yet was too young
to live that life. It made me angry. Most of my friends had rich absentee parents or
came from broken homes, so they were free to do whatever they wanted. I deeply resented
the relative stability at my house."
So he developed a stubborn, free-spirited streak that stayed with him into adulthood.
When asked by Men's Journal what advice he would give his younger self, Bourdain responded,
"I wouldn't have listened. That's the kind of a--hole I was...I would have gone right
ahead and made the same mistakes."
Anthony Bourdain's rise to culinary success and eventually global fame was anything but
glamorous. He got his start in the food world back in the mid '70s, working through college
as a dishwasher at a restaurant in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Bourdain quickly moved from the sink to the line, where he learned just how undeveloped
his skill set was compared to the other cooks. But he was passionate, and he was hooked,
so he dropped out of college, and enrolled in the Culinary Institute of America. After
graduating in 1978, Bourdain slogged through the culinary ranks of New York City restaurants,
working long hours and spending late night after hours doing drugs and living a rock-star
lifestyle.
"Come on, put down the crack pipe and make the dessert."
It took two decades before he was eventually named the Executive Chef at Brasserie Les
Halles. The whole experience — the labor, the grind, the substance abuse — was tough
on him, and made him tougher, and meaner, in turn. Bourdain told the Guardian in 2017
of the, quote, "psychotic rage" he felt during those years. He said he was "awful to line
cooks, abusive to waiters, [and] bullying to dishwashers," adding
"I hurt, disappointed and offended many, many, many people and I regret a lot."
While working in kitchens, Bourdain was simultaneously developing his passion for writing. It was
this skill set that would eventually catapult Bourdain's career and change his life forever.
While he may be one of the most well known figures in the culinary world, Anthony Bourdain
didn't become a celebrity until he was in his 40s, and up until that point he lived
without much of a sense of stability or security.
When Bourdain first started out after culinary school, he was barely getting by. In a 2017
interview with Wealthsimple Magazine, he recalled those days by saying,
"I never went home with more than 120 bucks. Not a lot of dough. I was staying with my
then-girlfriend. [...] I ate most of my meals at work."
He was in a cycle of debt he couldn't get out of, and was always a paycheck behind.
"Kitchen Confidential," the book that launched Bourdain's career and changed his life, was
published in 2000, when the chef was 44 years old. At that point in time, Bourdain admitted
that he hadn't filed taxes in about 10 years, and was also behind on his rent. He'd never
had health insurance or a savings account.
As a result, Bourdain said that he spent every day trying to deal with the stress of financial
precarity. He said,
"In my daily life, the goal was to muffle the anxiety that I'd feel as I tried to drift
off to sleep knowing that, at any point, what little money I had in my bank account could
be garnished by the IRS or the credit card company. The landlord could kick me to the
curb. That was my reality for many years."
Even after his success kicked off in earnest, Bourdain lived his life battling inner demons.
He once called himself "an unhappy soul" in an interview with The Guardian.
In the early 2000s, after his first marriage ended, he admitted in his book "Medium Raw"
to being "aimless and regularly suicidal." Eventually, he acknowledged that he was living
with depression.
Bourdain opened up about his struggles during an episode of "Parts Unknown" in 2016. While
filming in Argentina, he spoke with a therapist about how even things which seemed insignificant
could trigger major bouts of sorrow and despondency.
Something as trivial as a bad hamburger at the airport, he said, had the potential to
set him off, launching him into a prolonged spiral of depression.
He also admitted to feeling alone.
"I feel kind of like a freak and I feel very isolated. I communicate for a living, but
I'm terrible at communicating with people I care about."
In an interview with People just four months before his death, Bourdain confessed,
"There have been times, honestly, in my life that I figured, 'I've had a good run — why
not just do this stupid thing, this selfish thing... jump off a cliff into water of indeterminate
depth'."
While Anthony Bourdain spent his TV career shining the spotlight on other people's food
and cultures, at the end of the day, he believed himself to be a narcissist.
"A reasonable person does not believe that you are so interesting that people will watch
you on television. I think this is evidence of a narcissistic personality disorder."
Despite this self-professed view of himself, Bourdain was also overwhelmed by his own fame.
He told Business Insider in 2016,
"I work really hard to not ever think about my place in the world. [...] I'm aware of
my good fortune. I'm very aware of it, and I'm very aware that, because of it, people
offer me things."
Filmmaker Morgan Neville, who documented Bourdain's life story in the film "Roadrunner," told
Rolling Stone this sense of awareness was like an insecurity that always pushed Bourdain
forward.
"He never slowed down working. It wasn't money. It was just Tony feeling like if he slowed
down, something was going to catch up with him."
In the wake of his death, family, friends, and coworkers are revealing more about the
struggles they witnessed Anthony Bourdain deal with. For the most part, he suffered
in silence, and didn't do much to tackle his issues head on.
While filming his new documentary on Bourdain's life, filmmaker Morgan Neville learned of
the chef's battles with a range of mental health issues, including depression, anxiety,
agoraphobia, OCD, bipolar episodes, and an addictive personality.
Speaking to Vanity Fair, Neville said,
"I think what drove his unhappiness was that he was somebody who had been running away
from his deeper problems for a long time. [...] Part of that is what made him interesting,
great as a personality, and compelling to watch. But part of it made him an incredibly
vulnerable person."
Bourdain had implied in the past that he maybe didn't deserve to confront his own unhappiness,
saying he felt he wasn't going to get a lot of sympathy from people.
"I'm not gonna get a lot of sympathy from people, frankly. I have the best job in the
world, let's face it."
Anthony Bourdain was a beloved figure to millions of people in the food industry and beyond.
But within the tight circle of the culinary TV world, he also managed to make quite a
few enemies. Mostly because Bourdain had a lot of strong opinions, and he had no hesitation
in making them known, no matter how harsh.
He's hit targets across the culinary spectrum with reckless abandon, from Wolfgang Puck
to Rachael Ray to Paula Deen, whom he called, quote, "the worst, most dangerous person to
America." And then of course there was the years-long feud with Guy Fieri, after Bourdain
remarked to TV Guide that he looked like a Simpsons character.
Perhaps Bourdain's most intense clash, though, was with the entire Food Network. After his
first TV show, "A Cook's Tour" saw relative success, Bourdain was ready to continue traveling
the world, and exploring out-of-the-box and unknown cuisines. However, the Food Network
wanted him to crank out ratings by focusing on familiar domestic comforts, like barbecue.
So Bourdain walked away, made a deal with the Travel Channel, and soon after "No Reservations"
was born.
No one would disagree that Anthony Bourdain was the type of person to call things exactly
as he saw them. It was something that many people admired, and it was also something
that got him in hot water sometimes. Interview after interview can be found of him blasting
off snarky comments about fellow celebrity chefs, the pitfalls of Western dining culture,
politicians, and more. If Bourdain had something to say, the world was going to hear it.
But those who knew him best experienced a whole other Anthony Bourdain, one that was
reserved, a little goofy, extremely humble, and kind. Brasserie Les Halles owner, Philippe
Lajaunie, told GQ that he remembered Bourdain as being, quote, "very quiet, almost timid."
Close friend and fellow chef Éric Ripert recalled that "he never complained about anything."
Speaking to Vanity Fair, many of the fixers who worked with Bourdain recalled how he respected
and engaged them in ways not commonly seen in the industry. But perhaps chef and friend
Gabrielle Hamilton summed it up best, telling GQ,
"Tony lavishes you with love and friendship and generosity and kindness... it was breathtaking
to be loved by him."
The culinary world and the millions of others who cherished Anthony Bourdain were brought
to a standstill with the tragic news of his death on Friday, June 8, 2018. CNN reported
that Bourdain was in France filming a new episode of "Parts Unknown” along with French
chef Éric Ripert when he died.
It was Ripert, a longtime close friend of Bourdain's, who found him unresponsive in
his hotel room at the Le Chambard Hotel in Kaysersberg that morning. French authorities
quickly ruled the 61-year-old's death a suicide.
After his death, CNN and the show's production company, Zero Point Zero, decided not to air
the episode Bourdain was working on at the time, set to showcase France's Alsace region.
They did, however, decide to honor Bourdain's work and legacy by piecing together a final
season of "Parts Unknown."
From the moment the news broke of Anthony Bourdain's death, his impact on the world
became even more clear. Tributes came pouring in like a tidal wave from those who knew him,
worked with him, briefly met him, or only ever saw him through their TV screens. Millions
came together to mourn the loss of a great chef, and an even greater teacher, who demonstrated
how to experience food, embrace its power to bridge divides, and use that power to better
understand life and humanity. One thing is for sure — Anthony Bourdain will never be
forgotten.
Lydia Tenaglia, the co-founder of ZPZ Productions, said after Bourdain's death that the work
he started will carry on in his honor. She told GQ,
"Through all these years of working with him, through osmosis, we have the same creative
force and integrity as that guy... And we're trying to move forward with it."
Bourdain's brother, Christopher, told the TODAY Show that he hopes people learn from
Bourdain's open-mindedness when interacting with unfamiliar people and places, and come
to appreciate diversity in the wholehearted way he did.
Filmmaker Morgan Neville, speaking with CBS News, described Bourdain as
"THE advocate in our society for how we can treat people on the far side of the planet
as dimensional people who have their own dreams and loves and families and hopes... that is
the greatest achievement that he had."
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide
Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).