Meet Laurie Woolever: Anthony Bourdain’s ex-assistant – who also worked for Mario Batali – details the days leading up to his death in her new memoir and opens up about her affairs and addictions

Anthony Bourdain’s former assistant and co-writer is revealing the last exchange she had with the popular chef, author and TV host hours before his 2018 suicide. The Parts Unknown presenter hanged himself that June in his hotel room in Alsace, France, where he was filming the hit CNN travel series. He was 61.

The tragedy occurred on the heels of the National Enquirer’s asking Woolever for comment after Bourdain’s long-term partner, Asia Argento, was reportedly photographed kissing a French journalist.

In her memoir Care and Feeding, which hits shelves next week, Laurie Woolever writes about the days leading up to Bourdain’s suicide, learning about his death and dealing with the public outpouring of emotion that followed.

Woolever writes that after Bourdain saw the paparazzi photos of Argento, she received word that things were “apparently tense” on set in France because “everyone was walking the tightrope, trying to give him both the emotional support he seemed to need and the space to process his pain with a measure of private dignity.

“The next day,” she continues, “Tony asked me to schedule a number of things for him – a lunch, a haircut, a doctor’s appointment, a private session with his jiu-jitsu trainer – for the week after his return to New York. ‘I hope you’re doing OK,’ I texted to him.” Woolever writes that Bourdain responded: “I’ll live, and we’ll survive.”

The message proved to be his last to Woolever, who assumed that “we” referred to Bourdain and Argento.

“At 4:25 the next morning, my phone vibrated … It was Kim, Tony’s agent. When I answered the call, she said, ‘Tony has taken his life,’” Woolever recalls.

Here’s everything to know about Anthony Bourdain’s former assistant, Laurie Woolever.

She once worked for Mario Batali