Anthony Bourdain’s Assistant Shares His Heartbreaking Final Texts to Her

The irony is chilling. 

In an exclusive interview with People, Anthony Bourdain’s assistant Laurie Woolever, who worked with the celebrity chef and TV personality from 2009 until his death in 2018, talked about her memoir, Care and Feeding, which is scheduled to be released March 11. Among the excerpts that were shared, Woolever revealed the final text message she received from Bourdain, the night before he tragically took his own life in a hotel room in northeast France. 

“I’ll live, and we’ll survive,” the text read. 

Anthony Bourdain’s Death in 2018 Was ‘Hard to Reconcile’

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Woolever stated that Bourdain was responding to a query about his wellbeing, given that news had just surfaced that his girlfriend, Italian actress and film director Asia Argento, was allegedly having an affair. Though concerned over the happiness of a person that had become more of friend than employer, Woolever said she had no reason to fear the worst, especially since the two of them had spent much of their correspondence earlier that day making arrangements for Bourdain’s pending return to New York. 

“We talked about … very normal things like, ‘Let’s schedule this doctor’s appointment,’” Woolever said to People. “It’s hard to reconcile that he believed he would be back in New York — and then he wasn’t.” 

For Woolever, Bourdain’s death was made even that much harder to reconcile as it came just three weeks after Woolever’s husband found out she was having an affair and they decided to separate.  

“A one-two punch,” the New York Times bestselling author told People. 

Time has healed the wounds only so much for Woolever, who said she thinks often about Bourdain. 

“For years I have had these dreams where he comes back, and it turns out that it was just a big ruse where he decided to disappear for a while,” she says. “And I’m in the position of helping him get reacclimated into life.” 

Writing Memoir Helped Anthony Bourdain’s Assistant Process His Death

So writing this book, which Woolever stressed is “not a typical tell-all, behind-the-scenes assistant’s memoir,” was in part to help her with “detaching from the role as Tony’s assistant.” However, Woolever said she still has plenty of fond memories from their years together. 

“There was only one Anthony Bourdain,” Woolever said. 

“He wasn’t perfect, but he was very good and generous and fair. His interest in always telling the truth regardless of the personal consequences it entailed is an ethic that I always tried to live by. And also his commitment to his vision.”