Asia Argento texted Anthony Bourdain telling him to stop ‘busting her balls’ in her final message hours before he killed himself, an explosive new biography claims.
It was after complaining of his ‘possessiveness’ and breaking up with him when he complained that she’d been photographed flirting with a movie director at a hotel where they shared special memories.
Bourdain hanged himself in a French hotel room in 2018 while filming on location for his hit CNN show Parts Unknown.
The public outpouring of sympathy for the TV star was sizeable; his fans celebrated how he’d overcome addiction to launch a successful career, and hailed his unpretentious, down to earth nature.
But Down and Out in Paradise: The Life of Anthony Bourdain, a new biography by journalist Charles Leerhsen, challenges that picture of Bourdain as the people’s hero.
It claims he instead was hooked on steroids, drinking heavily and sleeping with prostitutes.
Anthony Bourdain in the final episode of Parts Unknown filmed shortly before his death in 2018. An explosive new biography paints an unflattering portrait of the TV chef and how he spent his final days
The biography pays close attention to Bourdain’s troubled romance with Asia Argento. In her final text to him, she told him to stop ‘busting her balls’ over being photographed with another man
The book also includes text messages, emails and the search history of Bourdain’s computer, all of which reveal his pained his relationship with Argento.
In their final text exchange, on the day of his death, she told him: ‘Stop busting my balls’ when he asked if there was ‘anything he could do’.
She had broken up with him, citing his ‘possessiveness’ over her. Bourdain had been left heartbroken by photographs of the Italian actress dancing with movie director Hugo Clement in the lobby of Hotel de Russie in Rome, where she and Bourdain shared special memories.
He responded: ‘OK’ and later killed himself, the book claims.
Bourdain also complained to his ex-wife, Ottavia Busia-Bourdain: ‘I hate my fans, too. I hate being famous. I hate my job. I am lonely and living in constant uncertainty.’
The biography, according to The New York Times, claims that Argento ‘became so controlling that she scrutinized the social media accounts of Mr. Bourdain and his wife, blowing up when she saw images of him with his family.’
Bourdain confided in his ex-wife that he was ‘hopelessly in love’ with Asia. He had quietly paid off Jimmy Bennett for her, after the younger actor demanded $3.5million and revealed he’d slept with Argento when she was 37 and he was 17. They are shown above together at the time
Argento has spoken publicly of her grief. She is shown in October 2018 on Italian television, saying the pain of Bourdain’s death ‘never passes’
‘You didn’t want me to put a pic that you had in it because Asia would freak out and I have a feeling that will not change anytime soon.
‘I’m tired of pretending I don’t know you. Or that we are never in the same place,’ Busia-Bourdain told him.
He repleid: ‘I feel you. But I was being honest. The pap [arazzi] situation is horrendous. Since I left you guys, though, she’s freaking out.’
Bourdain’s family and Asia Argento have already challenged the book, accusing Leershen of multiple inaccuracies. Simon and Schuster is standing by it.
The book will be published on October 11.
Bourdain had spent the last two years of his life ‘hopelessly in love’ with Argento.
Bourdain’s ex-wife, Ottavia Busia-Bourdain, told him that Argento was possessive and controlling. She had become his confidante in the final days of his life, the book claims. She is in support of its publication, while Argento and Bourdain’s brother have tried to fight it
He defended her publicly and privately, quietly paying off Jimmy Bennett, a man who’d demanded $3.5million from her, claiming she’d molested him by sleeping with him when he was 17 and she was 37.
Bourdain came forward after seeing Argento speak publicly about being one of Harvey Weinstein’s victims.
Argento told The New York Times that the biography was inaccurate.
In an email to the journalist that she says she forbid him from publishing, she said: ‘It is always Judas who writes the biography.’
Bourdain’s brother Christopher also tried to stop the book from being published.
‘Every single thing he writes about relationships and interactions within our family as kids and as adults he fabricated or got totally wrong,’ he told The Times.
Leershen claims he is being met with resistance because the portrait he paints of Bourdain is unflattering.
‘A lot of people were willing to talk to me because they were left behind by Tony and by the Tony train,’ he said.
Bourdain killed himself in the Hotel Chambard in France in June 2018