Anthony Bourdain Was ‘Giddy’ Just a Week Before His Death, Says Longtime CNN Coworker
Anthony Bourdain‘s apparent suicide is a “complete shock” to those who worked with him on his award-winning CNN show, Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown.
“It’s such a shock we don’t know where this is coming from, how this could possibly happen. When I was working with him last week he was giddy,” Karen Reynolds, director of CNN PR and Bourdain’s longtime publicist for Parts Unknown, tells PEOPLE on Friday.
“He was effusive and happy about the Hong Kong episode that was all he could talk about weeks leading up to it, how it was like a high water mark for him,” Reynolds says of the June 3 episode directed by Bourdain’s girlfriend Asia Argento that featured Australian-Hong Kong cinematographer Christopher Doyle.
“He was so happy. I didn’t talk to him this week but all I know was he was so happy last week. I mean giddy,” she recalls. “He was texting me and emailing me which he doesn’t normally do about publicity for episodes but he was like, ‘This is a high water mark, this is the best thing I’ve ever done.’ He was so excited to be working with Christopher Doyle. I saw nothing that would indicate what happened like why this would happen. We’re just floored. A complete shock.”
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