Chef, Author, TV Personality Anthony Bourdain

By Michael Kaplan

On TV shows such as “No Reservations” and “Parts Unknown,” chef Anthony Bourdain presented the image of an alpha male of the world.

Beneath the swagger and mischievous grin, however, loomed a history of lethally destructive behavior. Soon after his first marriage ended in 2005, as Bourdain related in his book “Medium Raw,” he was “aimless and regularly suicidal” during a stretch in the Caribbean. He recounted getting drunk and stoned — “the kind of drunk where you’ve got to put a hand over one eye to see straight” — and said he would “peel out” in his 4×4 on his way back from nightly trips to the brothels.

His state of mind improved upon meeting a woman in London. At that point, wrote Bourdain, “my nightly attempts at suicide ended.”