With the news of chef and TV personality Anthony Bourdain‘s death, many have expressed their condolences to his family. He is survived by his ex-wife and mother of his only child, Ottavia Busia and 11-year-old daughter Ariane Bourdain.

According to People, Busia is from a small town in Lombardy, Italy and moved to the United States in 2002 to begin working in the restaurant industry. There, she met Bourdain’s close friend Eric Ripert, who found Bourdain dead in his hotel room in France on Friday, who introduced her to her future husband.

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The two had their first date in a cigar bar in 2007 and married on April 20, 2007, just weeks later. Within the same year, they welcomed their daughter.

Bourdain told TheTakeOut he finally felt ready to have a child at the age of 50-years-old.

“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,” Bourdain said. “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’s constant travel, 250 days out of the year, often kept him apart from Busia, which ultimately ended their nine-year marriage. However, the two ended on good terms, who worked together to co-parent their child.

“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,” Bourdain told People. “So we’ll proceed like that.”

As pictured above, the exes remained good friends and continued to share their love for Brazilian jujitsu.

Busia and their daughter Ariane live in New York City, but manages to keep the 11-year-old out of the spotlight. Bourdain wrote his cookbook Appetites for his child.

“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. My daughter spinning arm bars is a thing of envy — Ronda Rousey quality,” Bourdain said.

As for Bourdain’s first wife, Nancy Putkoski, the two were in a 20-year relationship before they split in 2005. They were high school sweethearts in New Jersey, where Bourdain graduated high school early to follow his “partner in crime” to Vassar College. Apparently, Putkoski was the “bad girl” in school and Bourdain fell in love with her.

Putkoski and Bourdain divorced due to busy schedules and traveling that kept them apart, as did in his relationship with Busia. However, he seemed much more torn up about the end of his marriage with Putkoski than Busia.

“To cope, I went to the Caribbean where I behaved in a completely irresponsible and suicidal way,” Bourdain said. “I didn’t value my own life and acted accordingly. I had put myself in a very dark place and behaved recklessly in the not-too-subconscious hope that something terrible would happen. I was doing everything possible – smoking pot, drink-driving – to invite that.”

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Article by Gillian Kenah

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