Travel host, chef, and cannabis advocate Anthony Bourdain has died at the age of 61. CNN confirmed Bourdain’s death Friday and has reported the cause as suicide. He had been in France to produce an installment of his CNN series Parts Unknown according to the news network. Chef Eric Ripert, a close friend of Bourdain, found him in his hotel room unconscious on Friday morning.
A consummate adventurer, Bourdain spent much of his adult life traveling, cooking, eating, and writing. He was also an advocate for cannabis. He was once filmed enjoying a cannabis-infused pizza in Cambodia, although he didn’t come right out and say it. But he hinted pretty strongly about it.
“What makes this pizza happy so happy?” he wondered aloud. “Let’s just say there’s a powerful herbal component to this pizza…It’s the pizza that makes you insane in the membrane.”
He even took the opportunity to share some of the medicinal attributes of a pot pizza.
“Cures glaucoma, too,” he joked.
Last year, Bourdain smoked a joint on camera in Seattle for an episode of Parts Unknown. And earlier this year, he did the same in Uruguay, where cannabis is newly legal nationwide. He also visited other 420-friendly locales including Jamaica and Morocco, although did not imbibe on camera in those episodes.
In 2011, Bourdain revealed to fans at a Barnes and Noble bookstore his favorite method of consuming herb.
“I will tell you—with authority—that the perfect delivery system for marijuana…is a joint,” he said. “A classic joint. I prefer two papers. Purists will say one paper. [But] two papers burns more evenly.”
Anthony Bourdain Hit the Scene with “Kitchen Confidential”
Bourdain first became popular after the publication of his book