07/27/2024
Anthony Bourdain, such a sad loss. This article shows us how people, particularly celebrities, can seem to have it all while hiding their depression.
https://www.facebook.com/share/rkqZBZhih4XzhZVb/
Paula Froelich (writer, travel journalist—Bourdain’s ex-girlfriend): “…I think people don't understand because from the outside, Tony’s life looks like a dream come true. But it can be desperately lonely and you don't have the normal context that people have. All the traveling you have sometimes you don't know where you are. You find yourself feeling disconnected in a visceral way. — I saw him a couple of years before he died, at an event, and he was just cordoned off by himself. Like, literally, they put him behind a velvet rope by himself. It was like he became the zoo animal, and he was so uncomfortable with it. Being on CNN heightened his fame to a certain level where it became oppressive. I’m not blaming CNN. I’m quite thankful that he had the opportunity. But it is oppressive. Who the hell are you going to meet, you know? …Like, how do you meet someone? …And then you had depressive tendencies, and you live a certain lifestyle that, to the outsider, is everyone’s dream, and you can’t bitch about that, because they’re like, ‘Oh my God, what do you mean?’ Your brand is being adventurous and super cool—you can’t ever let anyone see that.
Then you’re traveling, you try to prep by reading certain books, but then you’re traveling so much, you forgot which book you’ve read. And have to be on. And being on is exhausting. So, after shooting, you’re just exhausted, because you’ve just been filming for more than eight hours. And then you just want to go and have a cuddle or touch base with someone, and have comfort. What was great about Nancy, and me, and Ottavia, was that he had a home base to come home to. If you don’t have that—we all absorb the energy around us, and who we choose to hang out with.”
— A life that looks like a dream come true - we “wannabe Bourdain” after he took us to his odyssey every week, it became a universal feeling of wanting to be more like him—more curious, more confident, more capable, more generous. Appreciating the often unappreciated, to be the voice for the voiceless. He approached every experience with humility and the desire to learn. His documentaries created an obsession for us to leave behind our urban city life in search of a more adventurous one of the hidden and the unknown… with no reservations at all.
