In what is thought to be the last interview with Anthony Bourdain, he doesn’t hold back from saying what he really feels, even about people he supports. Particularly in light of his stance on the Me Too movement, Bourdain has little or no patience for men who believe it’s okay to make unwanted advances to women who are clearly not interested.
Writer Maria Bustillos interviewed Bourdain for her new site Popula and, as she has published the conversation after his death, she felt compelled to mention that he seemed no different than ever. He was smoking again, but he mentioned that he regretted that, and he admitted to recently overdoing it with the partying (he had just returned from Cajun Mardi Gras, so that wasn’t surprising). But at the end of the day, he was Anthony, curt, frank, and funny.
Bustillos covered a lot of ground with Bourdain, including talk of both Clintons, and Harvey Weinstein related to the Me Too movement. Bourdain says he was disappointed with the way Hillary Clinton briefly spoke out about the Weinstein matter, and he tweeted his distress.
“And I have to say, Hillary’s interview with Fareed Zakaria was shameful in its deflection and its disingenuousness.”
And then he followed up by saying that she knew exactly what she said and what she didn’t say.
“Know what Hillary Clinton is NOT? She’s not stupid. Or unsophisticated about the world. The Weinstein stories had been out there for years.”
And even though Bourdain did not believe that the United States should have gotten rid of Bill Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky scandal, he still doesn’t think much of him as a human being, but he admits that Clinton is charismatic.
“Bill Clinton, look, the bimbo eruptions—it was f**king monstrous. That would not have flown today. A piece of s**t. Entitled, rapey, gropey, grabby, disgusting, and the way that he—and she—destroyed these women and the way that everyone went along, and, and are blind to this! Screamingly apparent hypocrisy and venality. How you can on the one hand howl at the moon about all these other predators. And not at least look back. OK, let’s say, well, it was all consensual: powerful men, starstruck women, okay fine, let’s accept it at its most charitable interpretation. Fine. He is a very charming man, I met him, he’s f**king magnetic.”
Bourdain believes that the bigger crime of Bill and Hillary Clinton was the way they shamed the women that he was obviously involved with, and as a result of that, he would never vote for either of them again.
But in the interview, Bourdain saved most of his venom for Harvey Weinstein, who Bourdain’s girlfriend Asia Argento accused of rape. Bourdain wants him dead, and he wants him to suffer in the process.
“My theory of how he goes is uh, he’s brushing his teeth in a bathroom, he’s naked in his famous bathrobe, which is flapping open, he’s holding his cell phone in one hand because you never know who on the Weinstein board has betrayed him recently, and he’s brushing his teeth—he suddenly gets a massive f**king stroke—he stumbles backwards into the bathtub, where he finds himself um, with his robe open feet sticking out of the tub, and in his last moments of consciousness as he scrolls through his contacts list trying to figure out who he can call, who will actually answer the phone.”
Bourdain wants Weinstein to die knowing that nobody can or would help him. For a private man, Anthony Bourdain was very frank with the author and spoke eloquently on topics ranging from politics to popular culture to world affair.
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