A 2012 episode of No Reservations featuring Michael K. Williams and Anthony Bourdain has resurfaced, prompting fans to draw comparisons between the Wire star and travel show host who both battled their demons, and lost.
Williams, 54, died of a suspected overdose at his luxury Brooklyn apartment where he was found on Monday, next to drug paraphernalia. News of Bourdain’s death was similarly shocking, after he committed suicide in a hotel room in France in June, 2018.
Both men had highly publicized battles with heroin and suffered from addiction and depression. Yet both were able to achieve greatness in their fields; with Williams putting in unforgettable performances as Omar in The Wire, Albert ‘Chalky’ White on the HBO series Boardwalk Empire and most recently as Montrose Freeman in Lovecraft Country.
Bourdain, similarly, shook the restauranting world with book Kitchen Confidential, about life as a chef in New York’s restaurant scene, and went on to travel the world, connecting with people through food.
Both their losses were heavy felt.
In the video of them together on the show, the pair visit a now-extinct popular Caribbean restaurant in Crown Heights, Brooklyn to share a meal of ox tail, mac and cheese and callaloo.
Both Bourdain and Williams struggled with their mental health and addiction and were very vocal about their challenges
A Twitter user advocated for more awareness about the mental health and substance abuse challenges that Bourdain and William faced in life
Williams’s co-star in the acclaimed series The Wire, Jamie Hector, pops in and energetically greets him.
‘Wait a minute,’ William says to Bourdain before he gets up and hugs Hector.
While Hector and William played enemies in the HBO show, they were friends in real life.
Hector paid his tribute to Williams in an Instagram post, sharing a picture of them at the Moving Mountains Award Presentation in 2017.
‘One of the realest! Gone too soon. Hurt!!!’
Fans on Twitter shared their reactions to the video posted by James Crugnale,
‘Thanks for sharing. Very sad that both these beautiful beings are gone,’ said one.
Another advocated for more awareness about the mental health and substance abuse challenges that Bourdain and William faced in life.
‘Mental health and addiction need more attention in this country and around the world. We need to get rid of the negative stigmas of these two. Both of these men and many others would still be alive today. Kate Spade, Robin Williams, the list goes on and on.’
Bourdain and Williams were very vocal about their struggles with addiction, recovery and relapse.
In this 2012 episode of Bourdain’s show No Reservation, him and Michael K. Williams share a meal of ox tails, mac and cheese and callaloo at a Crown Height’s restaurant
In the episode, Williams’s co-star in The Wire, Jamie Hector (left) runs into him and Bourdain. Hector paid his tribute to Williams in an Instagram post
Twitter users shared their reactions to the resurfaced video of Bourdain and and Williams
Williams, who rose to fame international fame playing gay stick-up man Omar Little in The Wire, admitted to being at the highest point of his addiction while the show aired, and going in and out of clinics for drug treatment since he was 19 years old.
Earlier this year, he said he was seeking therapy.
‘I just started therapy, you know, and really taking that seriously and starting to unpack, like you said, the critic in my head and what and how that has affected my- my actions, my responses to certain situations, my relationships,’ he said in the Tamron Hall Show.
When promoting his movie Body Brokers, about a corrupted drug treatment clinic, he voiced his insecurities about recovery.
‘Drugs and alcohol are not the problems, they’re merely symptoms of the problem. And once those things go away, the real work begins, you know…working on all the character defects, the moral compass, the skewed moral compass,’ he told the host.
Bourdain also dealt with addiction as a young adult, experimenting with drugs in his 20s while working in restaurant kitchens in New York City.
‘We were high all the time, sneaking off to the walk-in refrigerator at every opportunity to ‘conceptualize.
‘Hardly a decision was made without drugs,’ he wrote in his book, Kitchen Confidential.
He admitted using LSD, cocaine, heroin, codeine, alcohol and marijuana.
‘I got off of heroin in the 1980s.
‘Friends of mine from the ’70s and ’80s, they just got off five, six, maybe 10 years ago.
‘And we’re the lucky ones. We made it out alive. There are a lot of guys that didn’t get that far.’
‘I had other things I still wanted to do.
‘And I saw that I wasn’t going to be doing shit when I was spending all my time and all my money on coke or dope, except more coke and dope,’ he wrote in Medium Raw.
Although Bourdain recovered, he continued using drugs and drinking alcohol, worsening his depression.
‘You see me drink myself stupid on my show all the time. And I have a lot of fun doing that. When I indulge, I indulge,’ he said.
Bourdain and Williams worked in the two industries most affected by addiction.
The food service industry ranked number one for past-month illicit drug use, with 19percent of its members using illegal substances, while the entertainment industry ranked second with 13.7percent, according to the Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality.
‘Mental heath and addiction need more attention in this country and around the world. We need to get rid of the negative stigmas of these two. Both of these men and many others would still be alive today,’ a Twitter user shared
William’s body was found on Monday with drug paraphernalia in the scene, as police investigate a possible drug overdose, The New York Post reported.
News of Bourdain’s death in June 2018 were similarly shocking, when he was found in a hotel room in France after having committed suicide
Williams struggled to stay sober during the remaining years that he filmed The Wire.
He recalled meeting Obama while high on cocaine at a campaign rally around the time the show wrapped in 2008.
‘Hearing my name come out of his mouth woke me up,’ Williams said in an interview with The New York Times. ‘I realized that my work could actually make a difference.’
Williams was born in East Flatbush, Brooklyn and spent he spent his childhood in the projects surrounded by drugs and violence.
As a young boy, he was sexually molested. He told The New York Times that that experience left him confused about his own sexuality and caused him to be withdrawn.
On the eve of his 25th birthday, in 1991, Williams attempted to intervene when a group of muggers jumped one of his friends. One of the assailants pulled out a knife and slashed him, leaving him with a long, distinctive scar down the front of his face and neck.
Williams eventually enrolled in New York City’s National Black Theatre, and kickstarted his career as a dancer, scoring parts in music videos by Madonna and George Michael.
Williams made his film debut in 1996, appearing alongside Tupac Shakur in the film Bullet.
Three years later, he played a drug dealer in Martin Scorsese’s Bringing Out the Dead. He also landed a brief cameo in the HBO hit show The Sopranos.
Shortly after news of Williams’ death broke, tributes from the actor’s celebrity friends started to pour in. Alec Baldwin, Amy Schumer and John Cusack all penned tributes.
Williams’ The Wire co-star also shared an emotional tribute to Twitter, writing: ‘The depth of my love for this brother, can only be matched by the depth of my pain learning of his loss.
‘A immensely talented man with the ability to give voice to the human condition portraying the lives of those whose humanity is seldom elevated until he sings their truth.
‘If you don’t know, you better ask somebody. His name was Michael K. Williams. He shared with me his secret fears then stepped out into his acting with true courage, acting in the face of fear, not in the absence of it. It took me years to learn what Michael had in abundance.’