Anthony Bourdain’s Assistant Reveals His Eerie Final Texts to Her

Anthony Bourdain’s assistant is opening up about their close working relationship that often bled into a personal friendship. Things ended tragically when the foodie died by suicide. In her new memoir Care and Feeding: A Memoir, Laurie Woolever details the final text she’s received from her beloved boss. PEOPLE shared an exclusive excerpt.

In June 2018, Woolever got a Google alert that photos of his girlfriend, Asia Argento, kissing a French journalist had been published. The National Enquirer asked the assistant for a comment, but Bourdain, whom she referred to as Tony, didn’t want to respond. “He said, ‘Ignore it, and ignore any similar queries from other pubs. But let me know when the Enquirer piece drops,’” she writes. Meanwhile, his team were trying to navigate what to do next, but Bourdain went silent.

“A [Parts Unknown] producer Helen had heard that things were apparently tense on set in France, and everyone was walking the tightrope, trying to give him both the emotional support he seemed to need and the space to process his pain with a measure of private dignity,” she writes. “The next day, Tony asked me to schedule a number of things for him—­a lunch, a haircut, a doctor appointment, a private session with his jiu-­jitsu trainer—­for the week after his return to New York. “I hope you’re doing OK,” I texted to him, and when he responded, “I’ll live, and we’ll survive.” 

She continued: “I assumed that the “we” meant him and Asia, their complicated relationship. At 4:25 the next morning, my phone vibrated on the windowsill next to my bed, waking me from a light sleep. It was Kim, Tony’s agent. When I answered the call, she said, “Tony has taken his life.” She was shocked. And it didn’t immediately register.

“I thought, we can fix this. I’d spent the last nine years, and Kim much longer than that, helping Tony meet his obligations, get where he needed to be. We could, we had to, help him un-­f— the mess he made when he f—ing hung himself in his hotel room, just like he had glibly threatened to do a million times, in the face of something as minor as a bad hamburger or a delayed flight,” she added

If you or someone you know is in crisis, please call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline​. The previous Lifeline phone number (1-800-273-8255) will always remain available.