Troubled Anthony Bourdain famously kicked a nagging drug habit but he could never give up the booze.
A controversial new biography of the legendary chef and raconteur, Down And Out In Paradise: The Life of Anthony Bourdain by Charles Leerhsen, is slated for release on Oct. 11.
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Already the book has sparked outrage from the tragic Bourdain’s friends and family.
The book details Bourdain’s sad, final days after discovering he had been betrayed by ex-girlfriend, Italian actress Asia Argento, via paparazzi photos showing her dancing with another man.
Hours after her final text message, Bourdain hanged himself in a French hotel on June 8, 2018.
“He became someone that he hated. By the time he realized that, he was too physically exhausted to straighten things out,” Leerhsen told The Guardian.
“He thought it simpler to seek what is famously called ‘a permanent solution to a temporary problem’. Recovery, you might say, was one of the few things he couldn’t go all the way with.”
Bourdain shot to fame with Kitchen Confidential, his 2000 memoir, that painted a picture of the kitchens of high-end restaurants where he worked as awash in drugs and booze “accompanied by constantly loud rock-and-roll music.”
The Parts Unknown star said marijuana, cocaine, LSD, codeine and heroin were on the menu.
He kicked heroin in the 1980s.
“If he did something, he did it all out, whether it was comic books as a kid or fascination with the JFK assassination,” Leerhsen said. “But he pulled up short with recovery; he never stopped drinking.”
The explosive kiss and tell tome has been met with rage by Argento, and Bourdain’s brother twice tried to stop its publication.
Christopher Bourdain sniffed to The New York Times: “Every single thing he writes about relationships and interactions within our family as kids and as adults he fabricated or got totally wrong.”
One person who didn’t fight the book’s release was Bourdain’s former wife, Ottavia Busia-Bourdain, who he remained on good terms with right up until his death and took on the role of his confidante late in his life.
Last week, the author released text messages between Bourdain and his former wife, where he claimed he was “lonely and living in constant uncertainty.”
He added: “I hate my fans, too. I hate being famous. I hate my job.”
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bhunter@postmedia.com
@HunterTOSun
