Anthony Bourdain ‘never stopped drinking’ and ‘hated who he’d become’, author of biography claims

Anthony Bourdain never stopped drinking despite overcoming a drug addiction and ‘hated’ who he’d become by the time he took his own life in 2018, the author of a controversial new biography about the late TV chef has claimed. 

Bourdain killed himself in France in June 2018 while filming for his CNN show Parts Unknown. 

He had just broken up with his girlfriend Asia Argento and was heartbroken over photographs of her with another man in Rome. 

Bourdain’s final days are revisited Down And Out In Paradise: The Life of Anthony Bourdain, a controversial new biography by journalist Charles Leerhsen. 

Bourdain’s brother Christopher has tried to stop the book from being published.

In an interview with The Guardian to promote the new work, Leerhsen told how Bourdain had managed to overcome drug addiction but drank heavily until his death. 

Bourdain killed himself in France in June 2018 while filming for his CNN show Parts Unknown. He is shown the previous year at an event 

Anthony Bourdain, photographed days before his death in June 2018, 'never stopped drinking despite overcoming a drug addiction

Anthony Bourdain, photographed days before his death in June 2018, ‘never stopped drinking despite overcoming a drug addiction

He said he had become someone he ‘hated’ and rather than correcting his behavior, chose a ‘permanent solution to a temporary problem’. 

Down And Out In Paradise: The Life of Anthony Bourdain will be released on October 11

Down And Out In Paradise: The Life of Anthony Bourdain will be released on October 11

‘He became someone that he hated. By the time he realized that, he was too physically exhausted to straighten things out. 

‘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.

‘If he did something, he did it all out, whether it was comic books as a kid or fascination with the JFK assassination. But he pulled up short with recovery; he never stopped drinking,’ Leerhsen said. 

He said he was motivated to write the book to understand why a man with what appeared to be a happy life committed suicide. 

‘It’s an age-old story of being careful what you wish for, of dealing with success and love in oceanic proportion.’ 

Leerhsen’s book has been met with rage from the Bourdain family. 

The author describes Bourdain's relationship with Asia Argento as a 'classic adolescent case of the boy wanting the girl more than the girl wants to be wanted'

The author describes Bourdain’s relationship with Asia Argento as a ‘classic adolescent case of the boy wanting the girl more than the girl wants to be wanted’ 

The TV chef's daughter Ariane was 11 at the time of his death. He had all but 'vanished' from her life, according to the new biography

The TV chef’s daughter Ariane was 11 at the time of his death. He had all but ‘vanished’ from her life, according to the new biography 

His brother Christopher appealed to publisher Simon and Schuster twice to try and stop its release, insisting that much of the book is inaccurate. 

The publishing house is pressing on with the October 11 release date, despite his protests. 

‘Every single thing he writes about relationships and interactions within our family as kids and as adults he fabricated or got totally wrong,’ Christopher told The New York Times in a recent interview. 

Leerhsen claims that Bourdain’s romance with Argento was a ‘a classic, adolescent-sounding case of the boy wanting the girl more than the girl wants to be wanted’. 

‘The more he presses on her, the more she pulls back,’ he said. 

In their final text exchange, she told him to stop ‘busting her balls’ after she was photographed with French journalist Hugo Clement in Rome. 

Bourdain with his ex-wife Ottavia Busia-Bourdain. The book describes her as his confidante towards the end of his life

Bourdain with his ex-wife Ottavia Busia-Bourdain. The book describes her as his confidante towards the end of his life 

Argento did not cooperate with the author. 

She has spoken in the past of how the world unfairly blamed her for Bourdain’s suicide, telling DailyMail.com in an exclusive 2018 interview that she didn’t do anything wrong by cheating on him because he also ‘cheated on her’. 

‘It wasn’t a problem for us,’ she said at the time. 

Argento has since moved on with Italian MMA fighter Michele Titi Martignoni, who is 20 years her junior. 

The book also delves into Bourdain’s relationship with his ex-wife, Ottavia Busia-Bourdain, who Leerhsen describes as his confidante. 

She is not fighting the book’s release.  

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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk