Anthony Bourdain’s final communications to his ex-wife Ottavia Busia-Bourdain and former partner Asia Argento are among the raw revelations of his final days before his death in a new unofficial biography.
In “Down and Out in Paradise: The Life of Anthony Bourdain,” author Charles Leerhsen draws from more than 80 interviews, along with files, texts and emails from Bourdain’s phone and laptop to portray what publisher Simon & Schuster, the publisher of the book, calls “the first book to tell the true and full Bourdain story.”
“If I’ve written an unauthorized biography, I’ve also written a sympathetic one, and I’ve written one, I think that’s true to the man,” Leerhsen told TODAY.
The book chronicles Bourdain’s life from his early years through his rise to fame as an international television celebrity, although it primarily focuses on his final days and the pain of his breakup with Argento.
Leerhsen said to TODAY. His final days were a microcosm of his life: he worked nonstop, consumed fine cuisine, and drank excessively while battling addiction and sadness.
“I think in his last days, he worked himself into a state of exquisite misery,” Leerhsen said.
He appeared to be struggling with the breakdown of their relationship in what Leerhsen claimed to be Bourdain’s final texts with Argento before his passing.
“I am okay,” Bourdain texted Argento. “I am not spiteful. I am not jealous that you have been with another man. I do not own you. You are free. As I said. As I promised. As I truly meant. But you were careless. You were reckless with my heart. My life.”
“Is there anything I can do?” he asked her.
“Stop busting my b—-,” she replied.
