I think just in reading [Kitchen Confidential] and understanding where he came from—if you have an addictive personality, it’s one thing or the other, whether it’s food and booze, whether it’s jiu-jitsu, whether it’s cigarettes. Sometimes that can be a really wonderful thing, and a special gift, because it makes you take risks more than others might, but then it’s also that feeling of, When’s it all going to crash down again?
With addicts in particular, you want them to be happy, because you’ve seen them in such a dark place. You want to believe that it’s all gonna work out, this is it, we’ve gotten over the hump. You’re not even looking for something that might be a little off, because you want it as badly as they do.
ROBIN STANDEFER: It wasn’t a surprise to me that he connected with someone erotically, that he could not disconnect from the intensity of that. When he talked, I still recognized it as him, but he was embracing another part of him. He was looking for something to give him that high again.
There were other moments when he—it’s not like he disappeared, not in the psychological way that he did with Asia; that was a seismic change—but in that five-year period [of Bourdain Market planning], there were times when Kim and the investors and everybody was trying to put the deal together, and we wouldn’t talk for a year, and then suddenly it would be, “Oh, we’re gonna present, let’s talk, let’s do it.” So I didn’t know enough to know that this wasn’t one of those times. It was clear to me he was going through some shit, but there are guys who get involved with some freaky person and come out of it.
CHRISTOPHER BOURDAIN: In the last couple of years, we all knew him well enough to know that, OK, you’re in that intense, burning phase of your love obsession at this moment, so I should not expect to see you very much, because every spare minute that you have, you’re spending with this woman. But I would have liked it if he’d just have shot me an email here and there.
It’s funny, because Tony and our mom had not had a particularly good or productive relationship, but he was emailing with her much more than with me in the last couple of years. They were in communication more than he was with me, and I said, “What the hell? He doesn’t even really like her. She’s always a pain in the ass. I’m not,” you know?
NANCY BOURDAIN: I didn’t like the way he looked in the last couple of years. He looked like he was being ridden hard and put away wet. I hadn’t seen him look so haggard, so tired. Overnight gray. I mean, he was always salt-and-pepper, but this was stark. And he seemed to not care about being tan anymore.
Joel Rose told me that he’d started getting one-word answers to emails. Tony was effusive; he was not a one-word-answer guy.
JOEL ROSE: In the last few years, and as close as we were, I felt emotional distance from him. Not necessarily intellectual, because we would work together all the time. I felt emotional distance from him. We didn’t spend as much time together. He was busy and harried so much. In retrospect, I realize how tired he was; I didn’t realize it at the time.
SAM GOLDMAN: Our emails had gotten less frequent and shorter. I’d tell him when someone died, or when something really good had happened to somebody, but by then we were really out of touch. I would say the last year and a half or so of his life, we didn’t have any contact at all.
DAVE MCMILLAN: We didn’t even want to go to Newfoundland, when Tony asked us to go [for Parts Unknown, in September 2017]. I was tired of the attention. We’d already said we were never gonna do TV or media ever again, and we’d figured that Tony was never gonna ask us to do anything ever again anyway, because we’d already done so much. We did five events with him over ten years, which is a huge amount.
FRED MORIN: The center of [our relationship with Tony] was a joie de vivre, and we had to express it through a massive amount of food, luxury food, and wine. And at first, the first show, I had no questions about it. I was like, great, you know? By the last show, I felt bad. I started to be more conscious about the—not the image, but the message.
MUSTAFA BHAGAT: The Newfoundland episode was supposed to be a double episode, but it just wasn’t there. There was a classic failed hunting scene in which Tony was sitting out in the rain for four hours; he was supposed to get a moose. He was complaining the whole time. It was meant to be a grandiose episode with Fred and Dave, and they did have one grand meal, but it was clear that it was all a little bit boring for him. It just wasn’t happening.
DAVE MCMILLAN: There was something going on there [in Newfoundland]. You could sense it. It was like, Oh, Tony’s changed; Tony’s very different now. There’s a vibe here. The camera crew’s scared. They’re no longer a happy family of gypsies making shows on the road. There was a new element. Tony was exhausted. He didn’t know that he was exhausted.
FRED MORIN: But as much as we were a bit tired of portraying that heavy-drinking fucking joie de vivre—smoking, swearing, whatever—we were also wondering if there was any other avenue for us to live. Can we continue in that world of restaurants, without drinking? We thought that was the only thing.
I can only imagine how Tony must have felt about the lameness of civilian life, you know? Like, not constantly upping the ante, and going to further, further, more remote, more . . . And I had the feeling on that trip that he felt—not responsible, but he seemed to have changed his outlook about promoting that using culture, and that bro vibe. You could feel that was heavy for him to deal with.
NARI KYE: It was during [promotional activities for the documentary film] Wasted! that I started seeing the difference. All he’d talk about was Asia, and he was spending a lot of his time in Italy with her and her family. It felt like his physical body was here, but his mind was just with her, thinking about her.
WHITNEY WARD, FRIEND: Tony, Asia, Joe [Coleman], and I were all together in New York, just before the New Yorker article came out.* It was the beginning of the whole #MeToo business. He was very defensive of [Asia], and very supportive. He was the most eloquent and sincere supporter of women that one could ever aspire to be.
JOE COLEMAN, ARTIST, TV SIDEKICK: It was a scary time, you know, particularly for Asia. He was there for her, and I think it was important to have someone as powerful as Tony behind Asia, and defending her against the powers that tried to silence her. It changed the world as we know it. I was the one who played Harvey Weinstein in Asia’s [2000] movie [Scarlet Diva], so it was something that I was concerned about, too, that she was protected. She was fearful of what Harvey Weinstein could do to her. When Scarlet Diva first came out, [Weinstein] recognized himself.
NARI KYE: I remember when we had our theatrical premiere [for Wasted!] in October 2017; we were at Alamo Drafthouse [in New York], and he was there briefly, and he did an intro. And all he was talking about before he went on was Harvey Weinstein.
It was a few days before the news broke. And he was just fixated on that. And he even ended the speech—his intro speech was like, “Wasted! Wasted! Food waste,” and then, “Fuck you, Harvey Weinstein.” And we were all just like, “What is he talking about?” Because we didn’t even know what was going on yet. Then the news broke, and we understood later.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: I did notice that when it came to promoting Sex and Love around the World in 2018, I noticed that he was tired, and he looked older, and that he was slightly different than I had seen him months earlier. I wonder whether he needed to step back and take some time for himself and to surround himself with the people who really loved him. I think his friends feel very sorry that he might have been sort of led astray in his personal life, toward the end. This is all speculation, but I know what I saw, and I saw a very tired man.
OTTAVIA BUSIA-BOURDAIN: Tony would joke about everything, but he was much darker in the last year or so of his life. I stopped watching the shows toward the end because I could not really recognize him as the person— I don’t know, it was just really strange seeing him. Like he was not the same person anymore.
47
“He Was Attracted to Chaos”
JOSH HOMME: The last year of Tony’s life was really tough for me to watch, because he was saying this thing that was like, “You know, I’ve put myself way out there, and I could totally be destroyed by tomorrow.” I was worried.
ALISON MOSSHART: He did say, describing this relationship that he was in, “It’s gonna end so badly.” This was at the beginning of the relationship. He was smart enough to know he was in a dangerous place.
He could have been just sailing at that point in his life, had his brain allowed him to do that. I don’t know if that was just Tony not emotionally maturing beyond a certain time, when you just want what you want when you want it. He was attracted to chaos. And there’s something so beautiful and baroque about that.
KIMBERLY WITHERSPOON: I think he genuinely heard from me, and from [others], that her behavior seemed to me, and others, to be dysfunctional, and disruptive, and destabilizing. But I think he thought it was manageable.
Whenever I expressed doubt to Tony about his relationship, he would express tremendous empathy for me, and for my worry, and seek to reassure me that, yes, what I was saying was grounded in reality, that he understood, really understood, why I was concerned, and that on the surface, it did, in fact, seem dangerous. But he would also seek to reassure me that it was going to be fine, that he would be fine, that it would be painful, that things were going to end badly, but that he would be all right. He was unwilling to break it off. He wanted to see the relationship through. And I personally always thought that he was hanging on to this possibility that, by offering her unconditional love—because that is what he was offering her, just unconditionally supporting her—that love would, in fact, win the day.
Tony believed that he would be fine; that he was at a certain point in life, he was older, he had seen a lot, and that although this relationship was problematic, he was going to enjoy it while it lasted.
He said, “I hear you, I think you’re probably right. This is going to end very, very badly, but it will have been a hell of a ride. And I will be fine.”
ALISON MOSSHART: This is a sixty-year-old man making this choice. This is what he wanted. There’s nothing else you can do other than say, “You’re my friend. I love you. This is not a great situation.”
I watched his personality change, I watched his letters change, I watched his reactions to things change very suddenly. I knew him for only like two and a half [years], but I know a lot of people who had known him for a really long time.
He had these moments of clarity, where it would be, like, twenty-six emails of brilliance. Funny, awesome, great phone calls. I’d see him at things with our friends, and it was fun, and we would talk all night, and I would think, OK, everything’s cool.
I didn’t know the depth of what was really going on. I knew that he had left his wife, I knew that he got a new apartment, I know that he made the whole thing [into] the Chateau Marmont. He was so proud of it.
DANIEL HALPERN: I guess if you’re in that state, you’re much more vulnerable to that kind of takeover by another strong personality, and it seems to me that he was taken over in a lot of ways. And I think five years ago, ten years ago, that wouldn’t have happened. He was just—he was susceptible to that particular kind of emotional power play.
HELEN LANG: That’s the thing about Tony: he had an incredible heart, and even though he was this tough guy, he could be very easily manipulated, I think.
LYDIA TENAGLIA: When Asia came along, it was like this shot of adrenaline. He had almost a frantic sense of desperation, like, “Keep her happy.” He imposed it on all of us.
NANCY BOURDAIN: I felt kind of like a sibling to Tony. In the old days, if I didn’t hear from him every couple of months, I’d check recent news, just to see what was up. And when it first started [with Argento], I thought, Good for them, although I did think it was odd when he went so public with so much. He wasn’t that way, ever. He wouldn’t deny his private life, but I thought that was a little odd. But people change, and things happen. I really don’t know anything except what I can read online.
That’s what drives me crazy, because Tony was a very smart guy, and if anybody knew how to milk the internet for information, that was Tony. So I kept thinking, his eyes were wide shut or open, however you want to put it. Part of me thinks, sometimes, he just wanted to go out in a blaze of something that he’d found fun.
MIKE RUFFINO: It’s not like he didn’t know what he was getting into there. It was, for lack of better words, a little bit of a junkie move.
SCOTT BRYAN: He had that junkie mentality; he was all in, or nothing.
JOE COLEMAN: There may have been a pathological side to the love, but nevertheless, it was love. And what are we here for, you know? If you go through this life and you don’t really taste anything, you don’t really embrace what life holds, then you’re at a loss. You’ve missed out on something special. Tony gorged himself in being alive.
48
“They’re Gonna Tear You Apart”
Alienating Friends
JOSH HOMME: I was feeling lost in my life. The events at the Bataclan were weighing heavy on me, and I couldn’t get rid of them.*
I started throwing myself into charity work, stuff like that. I played this Bataclan benefit, where I go and shake someone’s hand, and, like, their arm is gone. A week later, I was playing a show, and I’m like, I don’t know how to understand what I’m feeling.
Sometimes you go wild, and you scare an audience. And there’s something magical in that, too. It’s maybe a little lost in this society. I was kicking the lights off the stage. I even cut myself, bleeding up there. This camera comes up onstage, and it’s dark, because I’d kicked the lights off. And so I just brush it with my foot, and I smile. I wasn’t trying to hurt anybody. You know, it’s like—if you’ve ever seen that shot of Johnny Cash giving the finger, or Iggy walking on the crowd—if you ask [rock photographers] Bob Gruen or Mick Rock if they’ve ever been bumped around to get the shot, that’s part of it, for rock ’n’ roll. That’s it, right? I thought I was giving this person the shot of the night, really. But I looked, and I remember thinking, “Ah. She looks insulted.”
She finished photographing the rest of the night. And all of a sudden, this woman’s like, “Josh kicked me in the head.” Now, there’s a grand difference between brushing someone’s camera away and kicking someone in the head. And to assert in front of a sold-out audience, I’m gonna just turn and kick this woman in the head—I tried to apologize via email, and text, and that got me nowhere; she wouldn’t have it. There was nothing I could say. At first, it was put up with a “#MeToo.” And I almost lost everything in a day, because, it was like, the mob burns the witch.
Everyone else called to see if I was OK, [but] I get a text from Tony. He was very rough with me. He says, “You need to do a full mea culpa, apologize. These people will come after you. They’re gonna tear you apart, they’re gonna tear apart the associations you have with me, and our friends. You can’t say you were tired, or that you were drunk, you can’t explain anything. Just fully throw yourself at the mercy of this.”
My reputation is—I have my grandparents tattooed on my hands. My name means everything, respect means everything. So I went home and immediately filmed this thing, and put it up. It was my choice. I’m responsible for me. I always take responsibility for myself.
Tony had written something really negative about me [on Twitter], and had assumed that what he saw from the world, even though he knows about the press, was somehow true.*
DEAN FERTITA: With him not knowing the whole story, it was a conversation that those two should have had, and would have normally had, so I did think it was a little unusual that Josh and Tony didn’t just talk. He didn’t get a full understanding. At least talk to your friend, you know?
DARREN ARONOFSKY: In Bhutan, there was a lot of drama going on, because it was right during the week before Batali.*
So he was really freaked out about that. I think at the time, he was probably the most famous
male that was completely engaged in the conversation. The Batali story was a big thing for him. He was done with him as a friend, he was clear. It was, like, unacceptable.
NARI KYE: He was always a feminist. Tony was all about equality for women and all that stuff, but never to this point. We were all just very much taken aback.
BILL BUFORD: It did seem like [his outspokenness on #MeToo] was informed by his relationship with Asia in a very powerful way, but a lot of people have come out and expressed indignation and horror at some of the stories that emerged out of the kitchen. It felt like it wasn’t incorrect, and it wasn’t that surprising.
I never saw Tony ever be sexually abusive, and I think his relationship to women wouldn’t even allow it. There was a high respect, there was an element of admiration, there was an element of fear. So he’s got good credit. But [his outspokenness] was airborne by the fumes of a very intense relationship. And that, at least in the eyes of this beholder, seemed to discredit it a little bit. It doesn’t say that it was wrong, or didn’t deserve more, but it compromised it a little bit.
JOSH HOMME: I’m really leery of mob mentality, and so was Tony, always. And that he was kind of becoming the poster boy for this thing, it seemed odd to me. And then it quickly became him backtracking and saying to me, “I’m really sorry.”
But I was like, “Man, we’re friends. Will you do me a favor? Will you grab Tony and put him on the phone? Who the fuck are you right now?”
And he’s like, “I’m sorry. It’s just hard to be my friend right now.” He was trying to make it right, but I was very upset.
When we made the California desert episode of No Reservations [in 2011], he and I got into this kind of physical altercation with a fan, a drunk, Palm Springs kind of golf-looking fan—just after we’re done filming at Pappy and Harriet’s, and we’re excited like two kids—this guy comes up, very rudely interrupts us, and says, “My wife is drunk. She’s a big fan. We go to all your shows, and watch your show, and we buy your books and stuff. Can you take a picture with her? She’s outside, like, a hundred and fifty feet away.”
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