The recent losses of celebrated icons serve as a reminder and a wake up call for us to stop demonizing and downplaying mental illness, and let it be a reminder to keep the conversation going and challenging the stigma by any means necessary.
For me, Anthony Bourdain wasn’t a celebrity, but more of an elder statesman of a cosmopolitan tribe made up by my fellow travel and culture journalists. He was much loved because we saw ourselves in him and in his heroism we recognized our own.