Anthony Bourdain poses with the outstanding informational series or special award for "Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown" backstage at the 2015 Creative Arts Emmy Awards in Los Angeles
Emmy-award winning TV personality, chef and writer Anthony Bourdain has died at the age of 61. CNN has confirmed Bourdain took his own life.
CNN confirmed his death in a statement on Friday morning saying: “It is with extraordinary sadness we can confirm the death of our friend and colleague, Anthony Bourdain.”
“His love of great adventure, new friends, fine food and drink and the remarkable stories of the world made him a unique storyteller. His talents never ceased to amaze us and we will miss him very much. Our thoughts and prayers are with his daughter and family at this incredibly difficult time,” the statement read.
Bourdain was in France when he died. He had been working on an episode in his “Parts Unknown” series. CNN has reported that Eric Ripert, a French chef and friend of Bourdain, found him in his hotel room. According to CNN, Bourdain was “unresponsive”.
Season 11 of “Parts Unknown” premiered on CNN last month.
A 1999 article he wrote for the New Yorker titled ‘Don’t Eat Before Reading This’ became a bestselling book — Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly.
Bourdain was described as a staunch advocate for marginalised populations and campaigned for safer working conditions for food industry workers. In 2013, Peabody Award judges honoured Bourdain and “Parts Unknown” for “expanding our palates and horizons in equal measure.”
In his acceptance of the award, Bourdain described how he approached his work saying,”We ask very simple questions: What makes you happy? What do you eat? What do you like to cook? And everywhere in the world we go and ask these very simple questions,” he said, “we tend to get some really astonishing answers.”