Anthony Bourdain's long-burning suicidal wick— in his own words

John E. Richters, Ph.D.

July 8, 2018

“I've had this dream again that I've had for as long as I can remember”, Anthony Bourdain confides to a
psychotherapist in early 2016 during an on-camera therapy session recorded for Parts Unknown (Buenos
Aires). Filmed from above, lying on a leather couch, eyes closed, he recounts “I'm stuck in a vast old
Victorian hotel with endless rooms and hallways trying to check out, but I can't. I spend a lot of time in
hotels, but this one is menacing because I just can't leave it.” I'm trying to go home but I can't quite
remember where that is”. At other points during the session Bourdain describes himself as feeling “like a
freak”, “very isolated”, characterizes his grueling, peripatetic lifestyle as “crushing lonely”, and recounts
how easily something as insignificant as a bad hamburger at an airport can send him “into a spiral of
depression that can last for days.” Toward the end of the session, when the therapist returns to her
opening question “what brought you here? “, he responds “I'd like to be happy. I'd like to be happier. I
should be happy ... I'd like to be able to look out the window and say, 'Yeah, life is good.' When the
therapist asks “... and you don't ?,” he answers with a simple, reflexive “No”. He also confides to the therapist
that he attributes his problems to a narcissistic personality disorder. And when the therapist asks how
long he has had this trait, he says “I think always. So nothing to be done.”

Already riveting and poignant when it first aired on November 20, 2016— just one month following the
breakup of Anthony Bourdain's 2nd marriage, the Buenos Aries episode is unsettling and heart wrenching
to watch knowing that he hanged himself 18 months later in the bathroom of his hotel room (a converted
18th century mansion!) in Kaysersberg, France. Unsettling because of the (in retrospect) foreboding nature
of his recurring, previously undisclosed hotel nightmare. Heart wrenching, however, precisely because the
remainder of his personal disclosures were not new. This was only the most recent of numerous
occasions— in writing, on camera, and during interviews — on which Bourdain had spoken candidly about
his personal struggles with unhappiness, depression, loneliness, and self-doubt. And because of his prior
disclosures we know that these issues weighed heavily on his mind during the extended therapy session—
far more heavily than his nonchalant, self-deprecating demeanor would suggest.

We know, for example, that his airport vignette about the hamburger-induced spiral of depression was
neither apocryphal nor hyperbolic. It is one of many occasions over the course of career on which the
ordinary events and disappointments of everyday life— bad airport food, an upsetting phone call, the
televised half-time show of a sports event—would send him into a spiral of depression. A particularly vivid
example is revealed in his voice-over reaction to a disappointing 2013 scene in Parts Unknown (Sicily): “For
some reason I feel something snap and I slide quickly into a near-hysterical depression.” “I've never had a
nervous breakdown before, but I tell you from the bottom of my heart, something fell apart down there.
And it took a long long time after this damn episode to recover.” Elaborating further in a 2016 interview,
he recounted drinking excessively after this scene to the point of “blackout drunk” and feeling “... like I
was speaking in manic, double speed for the next week. I couldn’t breathe, my crew was very concerned”.
We know also that his comments about having a narcissistic trait and therefore “nothing to be done”
reflected his long-standing conviction that his earlier heroin addiction and ongoing personal struggles
stemmed from what he characterized in a 2009 interview as a fundamental “character flaw, not an illness.”
— “some dark genie inside me that I very much hesitate to call a disease” he described in 2014 on Parts
Unknown (Massachusetts).

But there was something else on Anthony Bourdain's mind that makes the Buenos Aires episode disturbing
and almost unbearable to watch knowing how his story ended. Something that found its way into his
thoughts and established permanent occupancy in his mind decades earlier in the midst of a personal crisis
he recounts in his 2000 memoir: “I was utterly depressed ... in bed all day, immobilized by guilt, fear,
shame and regret ... heart palpitations, terrors, bouts of self-loathing so powerful that only the thought
of diving through my sixth-floor window onto Riverside Drive gave me any comfort and allowed me to lull
myself into a resigned sleep”. Several years later, in the aftermath of his 2005 divorce, his passive suicidal
thoughts escalated into active suicidal behavior. Recalling this period in his 2010 memoir, “I was aimless
and regularly suicidal ... foot on the gas, the cliff edge coming up at me fast ... (and) at the last second,
turned away from empty air, laughing and crying at the wonderfulness and absurdity of it all, diverted
from what I very much felt to be my just desserts.”

As Bourdain continued to struggle publically with his demons over the years, he also became increasingly
comfortable with the idea of suicide as potential exit strategy. He became particularly comfortable with the
idea of hanging himself as an option, and was especially drawn to the idea of hanging himself in the
shower. Sufficiently comfortable that he referred casually and explicitly to killing himself in this way
throughout his professional career. Not occasionally, but frequently. A cursory review of his public
statements over the years reveals 19 separate occasions— in writing, during interviews, and on camera—
on which he refers to suicide by hanging. On the vast majority of these occasions he refers explicitly to
hanging himself in the shower, on 1 occasion more specifically to hanging himself in the shower of
his hotel room, and on 1 occasion even more specifically to hanging himself in the shower stall of his
lonely hotel room:

May 2005 Interview with 8 Days Magazine “If I had to make a show called The Naked Chef, I'd
hang myself.”
March 2012 Interview with Food Republic: “I'm not Michael Pollan. I'm not out there addressing
sustainable agriculture in this country in a serious way. A silent room for five minutes, I may as
well hang myself.”
May 2013 Parts Unknown, Season 1, Episode 4 (Quebec): “At no point in my cooking career
could I have worked with one of these (an electric stove) without murdering everyone in the
vicinity before hanging myself from the nearest beam.”
August 2005 No Reservations, Season 1, Episode 2 (Iceland - Hello Darkness My Old Friend):
“You wake up, feeling like you're not sure whether you want to curl up into a fetal ball, start
crying, projectile vomit, or hang yourself in the shower.”
November 2005 No Reservations, Season 1, Episode 9 (New Zealand): “Generally after these
events I want to hang myself in the shower stall, and tonight's no different.”
January 2009 No Reservations, Season 5, Episode 4 (Azores): “Oh boy, just saved from a
poisonous blowhole-inspired bout of depression and self-loathing by the healing powers of
pork. I determine not to hang myself in the shower stall of my lonely hotel room.”
July 2009 No Reservations, Season 5, Episode 13 (Rust Belt): “The painful story of my life and
less than distinguished career ended up as five episodes of a sitcom on Fox, at the end of which
I'd pretty much wanted to hang myself in the shower.”
January 2010 Milwaukee WI Riverside Theater appearance: “If I had to be him for five hours, I'd
hang myself in a shower stall.”
March 2015 Peabody Awards Interview: “I said 'No. I'm just not going to do it. I can't do it. You
know, I'll hang myself in the shower stall if I do that for a week'.”
October 2015 Interview with FirstWeEat: “I'd rather hang myself in the shower than go to work
thinking that. Doing the same thing every single week because it works… that's hell.”
May 2016 Interview with Food and Wine magazine: “... but we have the freedom to look into the
camera and say ... “I am so depressed right now I just want to hang myself in the shower.”
June 2016 Interview with AdWeek: “Jesus. Let me go hang myself in the shower now. Oh my
God, it would be just so appalling.”
October 2016 Interview with Vogue magazine: ''If it feels like a Todd English product, then we
can all just go home and throw a noose over the fucking shower stall.''
December 2016 Interview on NPRs Wait Wait Don't Tell Me (It's Not My Job): “If any one of those
answers are correct, I'm going to go hang myself in the shower.”
 April 2017 Interview with Mic (digital media company): “If I'm in any way responsible or seen as
supportive of 'bro cuisine' I mean, it makes me just want to hang myself in the shower thinking
about it.”
October 2017 Post-credit trailer from Wasted! The Story of Food Waste (2017), a video
documentary narrated and co-produced by Anthony Bourdain: “The more people that watch this
film and would have immediately gone and hung themselves in the shower out of guilt, the
happier I'd be.”
May 2006 About traveling with his TV production crew for “Cooks Tour” (from Nasty Bits): “...
we've been softened up by countless 'hang-yourself-in-the-shower-stall' hotel rooms.”
August 2000 Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential: “If an unexpected period of
unemployment inspires you to leap off a bridge, hang yourself from a tree or chug-a-lug a quart
of drain cleaner, that's too bad.”
April 2004 Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook: “If you can't properly roast a damn
chicken then you are one helpless, hopeless, sorry-ass bivalve in an apron. Take that apron off,
wrap it around your neck, and hang yourself.”

Taken as a whole, these narrative threads reveal a sobering portrait of Anthony Bourdain's state of mind
in the months preceding his suicide. And across the course of his long journey to Kaysersberg, France, he
was brutally honest and open about the demons that haunted him, his conviction that they stemmed
from a character flaw beyond the reach of therapeutic remedies, and his preoccupation with hanging
himself in the shower as a final solution to his suffering.

In the end, Anthony Bourdain left behind only 2 unanswered questions when he entered his lonely hotel
room for the last time on June 7. The more obvious question, in the absence of a suicide note, concerns
the triggering event that led Bourdain to finally act on his suicidal thoughts. Within the context of the
current national dialog about suicide prevention, however, the more important question is why were we
so surprised when he did?

If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention
Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), text “help” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 or go
to suicidepreventionlifeline.org

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