Damn it to hell, this one hit hard. The news of Anthony Bourdain’s passing — the second high-profile death by suicide this week—seemed to rally every Hadean circle of Twitter into a relentless but cathartic act of communal mourning on Friday.
Competitive Grief Twitter, our tone-deaf tendency to take a celebrity’s death and find a tangential way to Make It About Me, can get exhausting. (“RIP, Heath Ledger — I totally lost my virginity to 10 Things I Hate About You!”) But today felt different: It seemed like everyone, from celebrity to nobody, had a doozy of a Bourdain story to share—a seemingly everyday occurrence of compassion and generosity you might not expect from a former heroin addict with a face so craggy you could hide a scarf in it. And there was no shortage of great Bourdain moments brought to light: his gut-bustingly funny roast of Guy Fieri, his nuanced take on the hypocrisy of anti-Mexican racism, his support of octogenarian food reviewer Marilyn Hagerty and his thrashing of the James Beard Foundation, to name a few.
Perhaps it should come as no surprise that Bourdain—a guy whose warm rapport with global strangers of all walks of life defined his success onscreen and whose considerate support for the #MeToo movement put him back in the public eye this past year—would leave so many people with something to share.
But I don’t think I realized what a mensch this Tony guy really was.
Everyone Has a Bourdain Story
Even Obama, who shared a meal with Bourdain in Vietnam.
“Low plastic stool, cheap but delicious noodles, cold Hanoi beer.” This is how I’ll remember Tony. He taught us about food — but more importantly, about its ability to bring us together. To make us a little less afraid of the unknown. We’ll miss him. pic.twitter.com/orEXIaEMZM
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) June 8, 2018
And comedian John Hodgman.
I ate with Bourdain. Probably 2004. He was big even then but he took time to sit with me in Chinatown to talk “weird” food for a magazine piece I was writing. He taught me that our “weird” is the world’s delicious. We ate chicken feet. The afternoon vibrated with life. RIP
— John Hodgman (@hodgman) June 8, 2018
Journalist Yashar Ali threaded a story about how his texts with Bourdain helped him through a bout of depression. He also wrote about Bourdain’s support of girlfriend Asia Argento amid the Harvey Weinstein media storm.
1. My heart is broken. Anthony Bourdain was so good to me and a big reason I'm still doing what I'm doing. In January I fell into a deep depression for the first time in my life. Having never dealt with it in the past, I was unprepared. Tony helped me save myself 1 text at a time
— Yashar Ali ? (@yashar) June 8, 2018
4. While many people, including reporters, had moved on from the Weinstein saga he wanted to make sure there was justice. He texted me repeatedly with ideas and every time a Weinstein survivor was attacked he would let me know because he was determined to stop Harvey's machine.
— Yashar Ali ? (@yashar) June 8, 2018
I love this thread, by filmmaker Jonah Ray Rodrigues, who made a parody of Parts Unknown and got Bourdain to play a “shittier, more buffoonish” version of himself. The clip is a must-watch.
I was obsessed with Anthony Bourdain. So I made a show parodying his called Hidden America. I was lucky enough that he agreed to be on the second season. His only request was that he wanted to play a shittier, more bafoonish version of himself. Here’s some clips 1/3 pic.twitter.com/yqXsji6d4D
— Jonah Ray Rodrigues (@jonahray) June 8, 2018
He was just so giving with his time and energy. He was funny. We talked about the Stooges. He improvised a ton of great jokes. He was just as solid as you wanted him to be. I felt he had a lot more he was going to accomplish before the end. He was such a great artist.
— Jonah Ray Rodrigues (@jonahray) June 8, 2018
Xi’an Famous Foods CEO Jason Wang wrote about meeting Bourdain as a college student, when his now-beloved NYC restaurant was a “basement food stall” in Flushing, Queens.
Today's a day of extreme sadness for us here at Xi'an Famous Foods. I've lost a dear friend today, and we mourn with the rest of the world. I remember the time in 2007 when Tony first visited our basement food stall in Flushing for Travel Channel's No Reservations while I was… pic.twitter.com/z7FBcWnMID
— Xi'an Famous Foods (@xianfoods) June 8, 2018
Fiction writer Laura Lippman has an incredible story about how her husband, The Wire creator David Simon, developed a bro crush on Bourdain and clowned on him for being “the most incompetent heroin addict that ever lived” when he admitted he couldn’t score dope in Baltimore.
A few weeks ago, when we lost Roth, I joked about the Bourdain stories I would tell one day, adding that I hoped it would be 50 years hence. Well, here we are.
— Laura Lippman (@LauraMLippman) June 8, 2018
So, anyway, that’s the man I knew, very slightly. Someone you could tease about his heroin addiction, someone that my husband wanted a bromance with, a guy who wanted to hold a baby girl in his lap while tolerating a fancy restaurant.
— Laura Lippman (@LauraMLippman) June 8, 2018
Bourdain gave a kid with leukemia an incredible gastronomical tour through Spain, wrote Evan Benn of the Miami Herald. What’s more, he took zero credit for it.
In 2010, I covered a @Bourdain book-tour stop at #stl’s @TheFoxTheatre where a boy with leukemia asked his culinary idol where he should go eat – anywhere in the world – once he’s in remission. Bourdain didn’t hesitate: Spain. But then…1/3
— Evan Benn (@EvanBenn) June 8, 2018
So, with the help of @MakeAWish, Evan Piña-White went to Spain. We wrote about that – https://t.co/a0Ky7JCfA3 – but the story doesn’t mention Bourdain’s involvement (per his wishes). He set the kid up at the best restaurants & helped make the trip incredible. He was special. 3/3
— Evan Benn (@EvanBenn) June 8, 2018
Bourdain once struck up a conversation with illustrator Shivana Sookdeo in line at a food festival, she wrote. She told him about her parents’ home country, Trinidad and Tobago. Then Bourdain actually filmed there, and she recalled how marvelous it was to watch him.
I met Anthony Bourdain only once, while waiting in line at a food festival. Instead of hello he said "hey kid, you hungry?" and it was like I'd bumped into an old friend.
— shivana @ MICE A57 (@toastasaurus) June 8, 2018
Maybe, if we’re gonna remember Bourdain for one thing, it’s that open-hearted curiosity and humility, a willingness to be a perpetual student of the world, committed to using his platform to reveal the complexity and beauty of the human experience, one bite at a time.
I think many of us trusted him to do that, to fall in love with the places we came from and to understand why we lived there or why we left there. We trusted him to see us as people first. Not curiosities.
— shivana @ MICE A57 (@toastasaurus) June 8, 2018
And also, let’s remember how much the guy absolutely hated Henry Kissinger. This story rules too.
Cooper Fleishman
Cooper Fleishman is MEL’s director of news and audience, overseeing the Daily desk, social media, traffic growth and editorial product/engineering. He came from Mic, where he launched The Future Is Now, a channel about tech and digital culture, and Multiplayer, a gaming vertical focused on diversity and representation in geek culture. In a previous life, he was New York bureau chief at the Daily Dot, a copy editor for Us Weekly, a dog food salesman, a T-shirt silk-screener and an ’80s cover band drummer. He spent 21 years in Ohio, which explains a lot.
