Daniel Boulud Says Anthony Bourdain’s “Heart Was Broken” at the Time of His Passing

A close chef friend of Anthony Bourdain believes he may have died from a broken heart. Daniel Boulud, who appeared on an episode of Bourdain's show Parts Unknown that was set in Boulud's hometown of Lyon in France, told Us Weekly on Wednesday that, "His heart was broken, I think. I don’t know exactly but I know … I know that what he did was something that was a shock to everyone, absolutely."

Before his passing, which was ruled a suicide, Bourdain had been dating Italian actress Asia Argento. After Bourdain's death on June 8, Argento paid tribute to her “love,” her “rock,” and her “protector.” She was “beyond devastated,” she wrote, and called him “a brilliant, fearless spirit [who] touched and inspired so many.” In her first interview since then, which occured in late September, she expressed that she had moments of anger at how he passed.

“The anger kept me alive because, otherwise, this desperation has no end, there’s no end,” she said in an emotional interview with Daily Mail TV. “I was angry, yes, for abandoning me, my kids. But now it’s been replaced just by this loss, this hole that cannot be filled by anything.”

Another close friend, food TV personality Andrew Zimmern, said he had a surprisingly uplifting final conversation with Bourdain.

“He was telling me about pursuing my own happiness and he gave me his long sort of speech about it, that I deserved to be happy and I was like, ‘That is so great, where did you get that little nugget?'” he told People. "I had said the same thing to him about five years earlier, which is great because sometimes you even know things yourself but you need to have a friend repeat it back to you... Everyone wanted to be around him and he was just a symphony of a human being.”