Rose McGowan calls for conversation on mental health

Actress Rose McGowan echoed calls for a broad conversation about depression and mental illness in an open letter on Monday about her friend Asia Argento, an actress, and Argento’s partner, Anthony Bourdain, who killed himself last week.

“To the media and to the random commenter, Anthony would never have wanted Asia to be hurt, I’d like to think he would want us to have the collective conversation that needs to be had about depression,” she wrote.

In the letter, addressed to “fellow humans,” McGowan said that neither Argento nor Bourdain, the famous food writer and television host, deserved blame for his death.

“Anthony’s internal war was his war, but now she’s been left on the battlefield to take the bullets,” she wrote. “It is in no way fair or acceptable to blame her or anyone else, not even Anthony.”

Bourdain, whose 2000 memoir about the secret lives of restaurant workers sparked a second career as a journalist and food expert, died on Friday in a hotel room in France. He was 61.

In the letter, McGowan said that the pair, who had been dating about two years, “loved without borders of traditional relationships.”

“Asia is a free bird, and so was Anthony,” McGowan wrote. “Was. Such a terrible word to write.”

McGowan described Argento in her letter as sitting across from her; the two were among the many women who accused film producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual violence, and they had corresponded about the process of speaking out.

In the letter, McGowan said that Bourdain had supported Argento through that process, which included being shamed in the Italian media after telling her story about Weinstein in The New Yorker.

“In the beginning of their relationship, Anthony told a mutual friend, ‘He’s never met anyone who wanted to die more than him,’” McGowan wrote. “And through a lot of this last year, Asia did want the pain to stop. But here’s the thing, over their time together, thankfully, she did the work to get help, so she could stay alive and live another day for her and her children. Anthony’s depression didn’t let him.”

That sentiment echoed what Argento said about Bourdain in a statement on Friday.

“He was my love, my rock, my protector,” she wrote. “I am beyond devastated.”

Bourdain had sought out help himself, too, but was unable to get what he needed, according to McGowan.

“I know before Anthony died he reached out for help, and yet he did not take the doctor’s advice,” she wrote. “And that has led us here, to this tragedy, to this loss, to this world of hurt.”

As the #MeToo movement began to gain momentum, Bourdain spoke out strongly against sexual harassment, publicly taking on his friends and his own blind spots. Bourdain had also been open about the other darkness in his past: his addictions to heroin and cocaine.

“There is no one to blame but the stigma of loneliness, the stigma of asking for help, the stigma of mental illness, the stigma of being famous and hurting,” McGowan wrote. “We must do more and be better. Anthony, our friend, would want it that way.”