Producers Recall The 'Very Dramatic' Way Anthony Bourdain Tried To Quit Parts Unknown
CNN, the home channel for "Parts Unknown," will show the Anthony Bourdain documentary "Roadrunner" on Sunday, March 13. To hype it, the company released a clip in which the co-founders of Zero Point Zero, Lydia Tenaglia and Chris Collins, recount the time Bourdain wanted to step away from the show.
"He did talk about quitting," Tenaglia admits. "It happened like a couple of years ago." The scene cuts to Bourdain at a bar, meditating over a drink. Over the scene, Tenaglia and Collins continue to describe how he asked to see them. "It was very dramatic," Collins supplies. "He was like 'I can't live my life like this anymore.'" "'I'm done,'" Tenaglia quotes him saying. "'I'm done with this. I'm done with you people. Every band comes to an end.'"
Among the reasons for the near-departure was that Bourdain felt he had broken one family and didn't want to ruin what he had with Asia Argento. So, Collins and Tenaglia accepted his resignation. Suddenly, Bourdain seemed uncertain about what to do, as if he expected them to put up a fight. So, they all discussed how they could make the show work.
Bourdain's work took its toll
The schedule under which Anthony Bourdain and the rest of the team produced "Parts Unknown" was intense. When his separation from Ottavia Busia became public, the subject of Bourdain spending "250 days a year" on the road came up (via PEOPLE). Similarly, when Asia Argento talked to The Daily Mail about seeing other men, she pointed out that the "Parts Unknown" star "traveled 265 days a year. When we saw each other, we took really great pleasure in each other's company. But we are not children. We are grown-ups."
While relationship concerns were apparently what Bourdain brought up during his attempt to give up his television career, it was becoming increasingly clear that the work took a toll on him overall. In the documentary, David Chang explains how being such a public figure caused Bourdain to develop agoraphobic tendencies, per the New York Post. He saw fewer and fewer people because everywhere he went, he was Anthony Bourdain from the television. "If I'm home, I'm not going to the hot new restaurant," Bourdain told PEOPLE. "I'm not walking a red carpet. I'm cooking something that my daughter decides she wants, or staying very close to home." Ultimately, however, the compulsion to produce the show won out.