After his first marriage ended in 2005, Anthony Bourdain felt suicidal, the late celebrity chef revealed in his 2010 book Medium Raw.
In 2005, Bourdain’s 20-year marriage to Nancy Pitoski came to an end. In Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook, Bourdain said he felt “aimless and regularly suicidal” while in the Caribbean after the break-up, reports Page Six.
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He described getting drunk and stoned – “the kind of drunk where you’ve got to put a hand over one eye to see straight.” He said he would “peel out” in a 4X4 after nightly visits to brothels.
Bourdain said he met a woman in London, and his “nightly attempts at suicide ended.”
Two years after the divorce, Bourdain married Ottavia Busia, with whom he had a daughter, Ariana. They split amicably in 2016, and Bourdain soon began dating actress Asia Argento before his death.
The Kitchen Confidential author was always open up his personal battles. In a 2016 episode of CNN’s Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, Bourdain saw a therapist in Argentina, where he discussed the feeling of loneliness he gets on the road.
“I’m not going to get a lot of sympathy from people, frankly,” Bourdain told the therapist. “I mean, I have the best job in the world, let’s face it. I go anywhere I want, I do what I want. That guy over there loading sausages onto the grill, that’s work. This is not so bad. It’s alright. I’ll make it.”
In his last PEOPLE interview in February, Bourdain said he felt a “responsibility” to live for Ariana, who lives in New York with her mother.
“I also do feel I have things to live for,” Bourdain told the magazine at the time. “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.’”
Bourdain also said he never saw himself retiring.
“I gave up on that. I’ve tried. I just think I’m just too nervous, neurotic, driven,” the Parts Unknown host told PEOPLE. “I would have had a different answer a few years ago. I might have deluded myself into thinking that I’d be happy in a hammock or gardening. But no, I’m quite sure I can’t… I’m going to pretty much die in the saddle.”
Bourdain was found dead in his hotel in France on Friday at the age of 61.
If you or someone you know needs help, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
