What Killed Anthony Bourdain?
Posted on July 22nd, 2021 - Last updated: October 2nd, 2023
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Love addiction is worse the second time around.
- This article, written by Dr. Peele, was originally published in Psychology Today
Anthony Bourdain hanged himself on June 8, 2018, at Le Chambard Hotel in Alsace, France. He was on location for a shoot for his cable food and travel show, Parts Unknown. He was 61. He had an 11-year-old daughter.
What killed Bourdain? I had written of his former heroin and cocaine addictions, which he had eventually remedied himself, while he continued to drink and to smoke marijuana. So much for his recovery, many people taunted me.
But his toxicology report was negative.
What else might he have been addicted to? Love?
He had been involved with Asia Argento since early 2017.
“His love for her was evident among the people who worked with him. ‘He would rave about Rome, where his girlfriend lived,’ Bourdain’s longtime photographer David Holloway told People. ‘He would say it’s an amazing city to fall in love in.'”
Bourdain himself admitted he was lighter around Argento. “Oh, yeah. I’m happier for sure,” he said.
However, their relationship also caused some concern among Bourdain’s friends.
“Like a teenage boy, [he was] just absolutely lovestruck. He would have done anything for her.” That was a little red flag for some of his friends.*
Their love flourished
. Except, according to TMZ, writing after his death, “Anthony Bourdain and Asia Argento seemed as tight as ever just last week… but it appears something changed within the last few days.”
“Just a few weeks ago, they were together in Florence, Italy… and still looking very happy and romantic.” But while Bourdain was shooting in France, “Asia was back in Rome, strolling around with a French reporter… There were photos of them holding hands and hugging.”
The URL for that piece in the usually reliable TMZ was “Anthony Bourdain-Asia Argento relationship split close.”
Of course, some people argue that Bourdain was simply depressed and should have sought medical treatment (as though he never had). Was it just a coincidence that, at age 61, he was “in love” when he killed himself?
I thought of all of this when I had lunch with a highly successful man my age. He was dating a woman with whom, he repeatedly said, “I want to spend the rest of my life.” Only they had broken up the day before our lunch. He kept texting her throughout our meal, preoccupied and depressed.
His story reminded me of Bourdain, who had dinner with a longtime friend and fellow chef the night before his suicide but was preoccupied throughout the meal, then he didn’t show up for breakfast the next morning.
Like my friend, for Bourdain, all of his other relationships meant nothing next to his love life. For Bourdain, this included, tragically, his 11-year-old daughter.
The whole idea of love addiction strikes people as amusing—as in, “Yeah, and I’m addicted to jogging, sex, coffee”—or some equally implausible (in their minds) object of addiction.
Except, withdrawal from love is the only addiction that causes people to kill themselves.
All of this becomes relevant as Archie Brodsky and I give a commemorative podcast for SMART Recovery
on the legacy of our 1975 book, Love and Addiction.
At the same time that the concept of addiction to processes has now become inscribed in the addiction lexicon, many people continue to find the idea laughable. Or, worse, they insist that only seeing a brain scan
can convince them otherwise.
But by the following criteria, love is the worst addiction, as Bourdain (and my friend) demonstrate:
- Absorbing consciousness and sensation totally
- Creating feelings of self-value and essential life motivation
- Cutting off other sources of emotional satisfaction, like friends and family (Bourdain’s daughter)
And, as my friend and Anthony Bourdain also demonstrate, love addiction is worse the second time around when perhaps time’s winged chariot makes men and women more desperate.
________________
* I have learned that Bourdain was “regularly suicidal
” after the end of his first marriage. That kind of reaction often repeats itself. Love addiction is the hardest addiction to quit.
Comments to this post in Psychology Today (and my responses):
“I suppose Anthony Bourdain was so naive about publicity… that he surely committed suicide because he saw a picture.”
Obviously, everything we’re talking about here is speculation based on the little information available, but it was not just one photo of an actress talking to a reporter. There were many photos of Asia being very cozy in various parts of the city, dancing together at a bar, holding hands, nuzzled up close together with this other man… I’m sure she and Tony had many conversations, texts, messages of some kind about it in the heat of the moment, maybe a blowout fight that led her to act out in front of the world, but we’ll never know.
Combine that with his depression, loneliness, heartbreak, and the humiliation of this tough man wearing his heart on his sleeve for all the world to see how giddy he was to be with this woman, and I can see it is one thing more than he could bear at that moment for this impulsive act.
This is not to blame Asia for his death. Regardless, the speculation will probably go on for years unless there’s some definitive evidence that comes to light (texts, etc) about his exact state of mind.
All this to say we lost a man who enabled people to experience the world at large through an articulate, open, and warm mind who will greatly be missed.
P.P.S. (Oct. 10): Ottavia Bourdain, Tony’s estranged wife, released a photo of family and friends clowning around a dinner table on the four-month anniversary of his death. One woman tweeted the following:
angie.eaton.norris: I’m just a normal homemaker, stuck in nowhere America. But with Tony, I got to travel the world. I got to see places that I never would have seen, learned about food and people that I never would have, except for No Reservations & Parts Unknown. Thank you for sharing your family photo. I grieve with you, your daughter and all of Tony’s friends and fans.
A mini-tribute
to Anthony Bourdain from two guys who met him randomly at a bar:
And yet, he was interested in us, in our stories.
As I shared details about relationships, past life victories, and most importantly, defeats, I felt Tony listening intently and without judgment. He expressed a level of interest I don’t get from my own friends or family.
Tony was present that night with us at the bar, just as we’ve seen him be with the people he meets along his travels. Whether with the people of the Congo or chefs in Los Angeles’ Koreatown, you get the sense that he’s paying attention. It’s not a routine or schtick, and we got to see that up close and personal.
Dr. Stanton Peele, recognized as one of the world's leading addiction experts, developed the Life Process Program after decades of research, writing, and treatment about and for people with addictions. Dr. Peele is the author of 14 books. His work has been published in leading professional journals and popular publications around the globe.
“Love addiction” is probably the most ridiculous phrase I have ever heard. Calling it an addiction is just idiotic.
Many of these comments display a deep lack of empathy and compassion. Most likely they have no idea how powerful being truly in love is. Perhaps malignant narcissists who love nothing better than to beat up on those who actually feel it because they can’t themselves.
It’s sad. There are many of us out here that feel this deeply and get totally absorbed in our feelings. Being famous didn’t change that. A lot of us suffer in silence. Thank you for discussing this. ❤️
I can relate to Bourdain because I’m also a love addict, mainly Sapio-sexual. He obviously killed himself completely sober and because Asia broke up with him because he was too obsessed with her and possessive of her.
The news of Bourdain felt like a hoof to the head…..I certainly wasnt ready for this at all…a man who’s enthusiastic presence to the world and it cuisines was something I looked forward to watching… even as a mediocre server, i would have loved to work at one of his restaurants…..His larger than life travels?? Hot damn!!!
where’s next? Cambodia..Middle East…France…Harlem?? He was freaking every where! I learned so much of the world through him…..
since his passing I’ve wondered if he ever realized how much people loved and admired him.
I stopped speculating on the “why he did it” because it began to feel as if I was disrespectful …better to celebrate and appreciate all that he brought…the gift of sharing a great meal with all of the world’s people
On the bright side, people who suffer from Love Addiction don’t get addicted to drugs, alcohol, or any other substances. They can quit those very easily.
It would be incredibly naive for anyone to assume that everyone is equally susceptible to getting addicted to drugs or anything else. Different people are vulnerable or immune to different addictions.
Throughout my life I’ve tried to kill myself and ended up in the hospital. I would be released but no help given only to go home and be depressed even more for not being successful in my attempts. I’ve had to seek my own help. My marriages were horrible with mates that didn’t understand what was going on and never tried to help or understand me. You get to a point where your children are not important enough to live. I was sick and tired of getting mentally and physically abused and the only way out was death and peace Now I look back and see that death is not a way out. Thanks to medication and therapy I am doing better. Getting away from terrible people in my life, having to move back in with caring family was my saving grace. I thought being with someone who was abusive was my fault I was doing something wrong but I finally broke the cycle of abusive men in my life. No amount of abusive love is worth giving up my life and leaving my child motherless.
Mos def someone else in his ancestry.com who pave the way for his sad choice
Anthony Bourdain started his life in career on a rough start.
And as most I’ve known in my life
Those with fame and fortune whether they have addictions or not in the but have internal struggles depression loneliness despair. If you want an example look at Robin Williams.
Anthony Bourdain and had seen and done everything I could possibly want to do in a lifetime there wasn’t nearly over he got caught up in a moment and that’s how life ends can happen.
Yes I do believe love can cause a man or a woman to take their life….. It’s happened in my family and the cause for it was love that was lost….. And they could not bear to live without that love….. So yes it is true love will make you do terrible things.
taking refuge, placing your full trust in receiving well-being through connection with another person, is losing the locus of loyalty and the locus of control into the hands of another person, and such such situations are insecure, uncertain, variable, uncontrollable… what will the person who has bet everything on the connection do when it is lost? We say love addiction, but it’s not love it’s a childlike experience of warmth and trust through an attachment to somebody else. One needs resources to rely on when that fails… If there aren’t any resources then suicide, or reckless endangerment of one’s life is not uncommon. Example : My brother was a sober addiction counsellor for 20 years, got dumped by his partner and then immediately obtained and used heroin to quell the inner pain and died the same night.
This article is so disrespectful to Anthony Bourdain and other people who were in relationships and still decided to take their own life. Depression and suicide is not brought on by a loss of love. It’s a devastating condition that suicide victims were not able to find reprieve from. To suspect that his girlfriend had anything to do with his death is also extremely disrespectful. I lost my boyfriend to suicide very unexpectedly and we were both very in love with each other. We said goodbye to each other saying that we were undoubtedly going to find each other again. He still took his life, not because we said goodbye, but because he was silently suffering to an excruciating extent. We had a beautiful relationship. This article should have been written with much more sensitivity or it shouldn’t have been written at all.
Wasn’t he working on a project with Chris Cornell and Chester from Lincoln Park about child sex slavery? All 3 died by hanging. Were they snuffed by the evil powers that rule media?
Women like Lily fail to understand, as does this article, an additional component to the intoxication and sudden withdrawl of head-over-heels love – that is the added pain of humiliation! Perhaps a woman may scoff at this, but a man knows that this type of humiliation is worde than death – or so it seems at that moment in time.
I agree with this article only thing that makes sense for the timing of his suicide. Lily I think you have a lizard brain.
Some people simply do not understand how a person’s heart and mind could be so twisted up in another human that they lose all since of self without them. Broken heart, broken mind, loss of self…a deep emptiness. That feeling becomes all consuming. Addicted to love is more than a song.
I know the pain that Anthony must have felt. My life was shattered by a similar kind of pain. Looking at a person and believing, “you’re going to be another part of my family for as long as we live.” Then, harsh reality sets in. That person was never going to be a permanent fixture in your life, not like family. That truly breaks a heart into pieces. And to experience it a second time later in life, that would be be unbearable. I suggest that a man make his ego small enough that others can pass through without disturbing him so much.
I believe love addiction is more powerful than drug or alcohol. I felt the need to seriously suicide myself was from a improper addiction to someone in my life that didn’t love me back. I’m an 89-year-old speech language pathologist retired. Who due to a inaccurate diagnosis of dementia ended I ended up in a nursing home until hospice I had to turn around. I’ve written a book DEMENTIA DENIED its not about a cure but a journey through CPTSD, addiction, mental illness, numerousattempts at suicide. Now after considerable therapy and posse of friends and an incredible near death experience I’m living a grateful lfulfilled life.
What a bunch of bs…
He was working/filming on a documentary that sheds light on the blackmailed pedophiles running our fake and gay occupied government is what got him killed.
I believed i was actually going to die from the pain of a broken heart! Real love is deep emotion and to have go thru that something like that in public would be soul crushing! I bet if he could have had some time he would’ve been okay… Who can say or judge… But what a huge loss! I was really shocked and it was hard to watch his show for a while, too sad. Im watching an episode now though! What a loss! RIP AB🙏
You could not be further from the truth in this entire post. Love addiction is the most dangerous addiction? Give me a break. It’s not even real. Even if it was, drug addiction wouldn’t even be comparable. He was not addicted to love. Most of his time was spent traveling, which killed all of his relationships. He was depressed and he took his own life.
Anthony Bourdain killed himself the night his younger girlfriend broke up with him because of what she labeled his possessiveness. What do you call that?
She didn’t say it was the only addiction…
Love addiction the only addiction that could make someone kill themself? Not true at all. Ive watched too many friends take their lives, not knowing how to live without their drug of choice, or with it for that matter.