Joe Rogan became emotional while speaking about the death of his close friend Anthony Bourdain on Wednesday (7 September).
Rogan was speaking to comedian Sam Morril on his Joe Rogan Experience podcast, and admitted that Bourdain’s suicide in 2018 left him ‘f*****d up’.
A cultural icon, Bourdain was found dead in his hotel room in France at the age of 61.
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Tearing up, Rogan told Morril: “When he died, I was f****d up for a while.”
Watch Bourdain chat to Rogan on an old episode of the latter's podcast below:
He also revealed that he and Bourdain initially bonded over their shared love of mixed martial arts and described some fond memories from the early days of their friendship.
“He’s just like a guy that I was so excited that he was my friend,” Rogan explained, adding: “You know, like when I first met him, I said, ‘My wife says you’re my boyfriend.’ And he was like, ‘…Okay’. It was like, ‘oh my god, f**k’.”
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Morril then quipped: “You were like, ‘am I blowing it with Bourdain?’”
Rogan continued: “The only thing that saved me, I think was that I met him at a UFC and he was a giant UFC fan, and this was actually before he had gotten into jujitsu, his wife was into jujitsu and then he started getting into the UFC and then he started coming to the show.”
He added: “And then he started coming to my standup and then we started hanging out and then, you know, went to dinner with him a bunch of times.”
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Rogan also said that going to dinner with Bourdain was like ‘showing up at a rock show with Mick Jagger’.
“It’s like, you were with Bourdain. The chefs would all come out and they would, you know, they would insist on like, just like off the menu, ‘Let us cook for you’,” Rogan shared.
Rogan - who appeared on a 2016 episode of Parts Unknown in which he and Bourdain went hunting in Montana - also revealed he still has an old phone that he refuses to get rid of because it contains texts from his late friend.
“I have an old phone that — I change my number all the time – and I keep this number because I have text messages from him,” Rogan added. "I’m just like, I’m not getting rid of that number. I’m just gonna keep that number just for that. Just to go over the text messages and see pictures and sh*t he would send me."
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If you have experienced a bereavement and would like to speak with someone in confidence contact Cruse Bereavement Care via their national helpline on 0808 808 1677
Aisha Nozari