‘He was a shark’: Anthony Bourdain’s loved ones reveal obsessions with exes, drugs, tanning

https://nypost.com ^ | September 28, 2021 | By Hailey Eber

[Red Badger]

A few months after Anthony Bourdain’s death in June 2018 at age 61, his longtime assistant Laurie Woolever started interviewing his friends and family. Woolever first met Bourdain in 2002 when he hired her to help him write a cookbook. After working with him for so long, she thought she knew pretty much all there was to know about him.

But she quickly learned she was wrong.

There were “stories I’d never heard and insights and observations that were new to me,” Woolever told The Post. “I learned something new from every single person that I spoke with.”

Those emotional, sometimes shocking anecdotes and remembrances form her new book, “Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography” (Ecco, Sept. 28). Some 91 people, from journalist Christiane Amanpour to restaurateur David Chang, shared their thoughts on the late writer, whose dark final days were recently recounted in the documentary “Roadrunner.” The revelations include never-before-shared memories and disturbing common themes.

One surprising thread that kept popping up over and over, Woolever said, was that many of Tony’s friends had the experience of wanting more — and not being able to get close enough to him.

“They always had the sense that he was on his way somewhere,” she said.

“He was a shark, always on the move,” recalls “Parts Unknown” director and editor Nick Brigden. “He had to move to survive.”

Even those who had a fame equal to or greater than Bourdain expressed such sentiments.

“Every time I was with him, I wanted it to go longer,” says Anderson Cooper, who worked with Bourdain at CNN. “And I wanted to be friends with him. I wanted him to really like me.”

Woolever also learned about Bourdain’s strange obsession with suntanning, which started in his early days.

[setter]

“True, but superstar cooks are extra dysfunctional.”

The two chefs I know personally are both weird and dysfunctional.The one is a woman with serious sex and drug issues.

[Georgia Girl 2]

I liked the episode where he went to Ted Nugent’s ranch and they let him shoot a full auto. 😄

[beethovenfan]

More like a whale.

[CtBigPat]

Loved his shows, read his book. By his own admission he should have wound up in prison but instead wound up in the kitchen. I even have a t shirt:

https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/19739555-the-opinionated-exclusive

[larrytown]

True, Zimmern appears to have his stuff together.

[AppyPappy]

Heroin is something that once you start, you it take along with you everywhere and all the time.

[larrytown]

Lots of damaged people out there, and he was just one of many. Charm is an effective camouflage for a lot of personal issues.

[Red Badger]

There is no ‘cure’ for addiction.

It’s a life sentence................

[GOPJ]

The ‘darker side’ was seriously dark: cannibalism?

https://www.henrymakow.com/2019/01/bourdain-leonard-cohen.html

“Bourdain’s Instagram account contained disturbing images suggesting he either knew about or was involved in dark practices e.g. cannibalism. He tweeted some negative comments about Hillary Clinton and Harvey Weinstein. There were rumours he had been planning to expose pedophiles in Washington just before his suspicious death by hanging in France.”

“Cohen and Bourdain moved in similar elite entertainment circles, and no one who makes it in that world is left untainted by criminal connections.”

[ecomcon]

Pretty much everything that’s wrong with entertainers. Just another broken sinner, who refuses to acknowledge that fact, who blasphemes the holy things to encourage depravity in others.

[tsomer]

So I read the article. Such revelations! The things I learned about this deeply troubled man:

He didn't murder anybody.
He wasn't a stalker.
He didn't like the restaurant business all that much.
He got addicted to heroin while working in restaurants in NYC. Shocker!
He replaced his addiction with an obsession for Brazilian Ju-jitsu--(I read he attained a blue belt +, = certified mid-level ass-kicker)
His relationships with his colleagues was, apparently, collegial.
He had a hard time maintaining relationships with contemporary women.
Nevertheless he still liked women.
Because he liked women, he was uninterested in any deep, probing relationship with Anderson Cooper.
In general, he kept his business off the street.

In short, as celebrities go, he seems to have been a decent guy. So lets go piss on his grave!

[riri]

I do remember those stories. And it seemed his love interest had been abused by them and traveled in strange circle. It's not too much of a stretch to think maybe his middle aged compromised by lust brain led him somewhere very dangerous.

I hold to my statement that men in their 50s should be locked away for their own safety.

[AppyPappy]

I don’t know. I have not wanted a cigarette in almost 40 years. I think it depends on the person and the substance.

[redgolum]

Hunting buddy is a chef.

Met him before I discovered Bourdain.

I called him the day I finished Kitchen Confidential. My friend had similar stories of sex, drugs, addiction, and such.

He (my friend) left the restaurant biz once his now wife tricked him into marriage (he was so high he didn’t notice).

[BBB333]

“I always preferred Andrew Zimmern over Bourdain. At least Zimmern appears to have conquered his inner demons.”

It took AZ three time to conquer his smack addiction but he dit it. Good for him!

[FalloutShelterGirl]

I enjoyed No Reservations back when I had TV. There was one episode, in Africa I think, where the person he was talking to shared the Gospel with him. I was surprised it made the cut and...in reruns, it didn’t. But it was a powerful moment and the look on Tony’s face was heartbreaking. You could see the struggle within him, the Holy Spirit nudging him, but the carnal man pushing back.

I hope he made his peace with God, in spite of his bitter end.

[chronicles]

Bourdain came to the Ozarks for a show, mainly because of his admiration of the Country Noir works of Daniel Woodrell.
That episode was the only one I ever watched, and I fully expected him to be distainful of local culture and cooking.
Was pleasantly surprised that he seemed to enjoy his visit, even the squirrel pot pie.

[setter]

“I don’t know. I have not wanted a cigarette in almost 40 years. I think it depends on the person and the substance.”

Heroin physically changes your brain. You never recover fully.
A daughter of a couple in my area have spent over 250k in treatment to cure their daughter. All for nothing. She always goes back to heroin, After she lied to them, stole from them numerous times and big money, threatened them with physical harm they cut her out of their life.

Their a&b student is now a stripper off and one and randonmly homeless.

[jerod]

And don’t forget... Raw hamburgers. That’s the worst transgression.

The good news... If you eat enough of them you never get food poisoning ever again... I know. My father served us nothing but raw hamburgers when we were kids and I didn’t have a cooked hamburger until I ate at a McDonald’s when I was 11. I can’t recall every getting food poisoning in my life and eat out at restaurants’ all the time.

[Governor Dinwiddie]

Anthony Bourdain visted West Virgnia for his Parts Unknown series. It was an excellent episode in that series. Bourdain told New Yorkers to piss off. He loved the people. of West Virginia He loved 4-wheeling. He loved eating real West Virginia cooking with families. He loved shooting. He loved shooting so much that CNN made him insert a disclaimer before they would broadcast the show.

He was an interesting, intelligent man. That show about West Virginia changed my opinion of him completely. You used to be able to find that episode on the net but CNN has done a very good of scrubbing it. No doubt it is out there somewhere.