I should’ve died in my 20s. I became successful in my 40s. I became a dad in my 50s. I feel like I’ve stolen a car — a really nice car — and I keep looking in the rearview mirror for flashing lights.

Anthony Bourdain (via fivedollarradio)

Wait a second.  He left behind an 11-year-old daughter?  As one father to another, fuck you, Bourdain!

Busia and Bourdain had their first date in a cigar bar in 2007. Within weeks, the two married on April 20, 2007. Later that year, Ariane was born.

“I guess my whole life, as much as I might have wanted a child for the reason that everybody wants one, I always recognized that at no point until I was 50 was I old enough or up to the job. I thought, you know what, I not only really want a child, but at this point, finally in my life, I think I’m up to the job and I’m the type of person who could do the job well and I’m financially prepared to look after a child,” Bourdain told TheTakeOut.

Busia and Bourdain’s marriage lasted nine years, with the two bonding over their love of the restaurant industry and Brazilian jujitsu (Bourdain was a blue belt). However, his work kept him away from Busia and Ariane for most of the year — 250 days, according to Bourdain — which took a toll on their relationship. The two decided to part ways in 2016. “As a marriage, clearly it’s not ideal but there’s no injured party here, nobody’s angry, nobody feels like the injured party, nobody feels like a victim. So we’ll proceed like that,” he told People.

After their divorce, the exes remained good friends and worked together closely to co-parent Ariane, Bourdain’s first and only child. Born in late 2007, Ariane is now 11 years old, and lives with her mother in New York City. Both Bourdain and Busia have worked to generally keep their daughter out of the spotlight, but the chef has mentioned Ariane in interviews over the years, and he also wrote his 2016 cookbook Appetites for his daughter.

“My sole duty as a parent and as a father, particularly raising a little girl who is going to grow up to be a young woman, is that she will never look to men for affirmation, or anyone else for affirmation or self-worth or be physically intimidated by anyone,”Bourdain said. “My daughter spinning arm bars is a thing of envy — Ronda Rousey quality.”
Good Housekeeping

Sorry, man.  Really sorry you’re gone. But not as sorry as your goddamn daughter, ok?  

Being a parent doesn’t magically end depression, or heartache, or boredom, or addiction, or stress and overwork.  (Or #metoo and #IRegret if that was a factor either.)  Life sucks often as not.  But once you take on being a parent to a human being your life stops being all about you.  Once you take on being a dad you can’t take the easy way out.

So sorry – genuinely, authentically sorry – but fuck you.