CNN Hosts Emotionally Report on Death of Anthony Bourdain; ‘This Is So Devastating’

RUSH TRANSCRIPT:

BERMAN: "Our friend Anthony Bourdain has died. The last five years on CNN, he traveled the globe doing what he loved most, exploring food and celebrating life and diverse cultures. Let us tell you what we know so far this morning about this. Our senior media correspondent joins us. Brian, what have we learned?"
STELTER: "Anthony was found dead in his hotel room in France. He had hung himself in his hotel room. According to CNN, he was on a shoot for an upcoming season of his acclaimed is series Parts Unknown. He has been with us here five years, beloved member of the CNN family and one of the faces of this network. He helped change CNN. He took a risk coming here in 2013. And along the way, his series, Parts Unknown, has won almost every award possible. He loved producing this series, traveling the globe, talking with people about life and love and death. Of course his show was essentially technically about cooking, about culture. But really it was about the human condition. It was about exploring what makes us all tick. And I think that is one of the many reasons why he was so beloved here. What we do know is he was found dead this morning in his hotel room. We have little information other than that. He was 61 years old."
CAMEROTA: "Brian, this is so devastating. It comes as a shock and devastating to so many people, not just our CNN family, of course. Obviously his own family and obviously all the viewers. I can't tell you how often I'm sure we have all had it around the world wherever we are, people always ask me about Anthony Bourdain. His message and what he was doing and how he was using food as a vehicle to talk about life and cultures. People loved him. They loved that show. Is there any more -- I just interviewed him. The idea -- it seemed he was his usual self. Is there any more information about what happened or why?"
STELTER: "Sadly, no. We know his friend found him in his hotel room early this morning. That's all we know about the state of what happened. He was there shooting an upcoming season of "Parts unknown". Right now the 11th season has been airing on CNN. He was working on an upcoming episode in France, strasbourg, France. It is with extraordinary sadness we can confirm the death of our friend and colleague. His love of great adventure, new friends, fine food and drink and remarkable stories of the world made him a unique story teller. His talents never crease to amaze us. We will miss him very much. Our thoughts and prayers with his daughter and family at this incredibly difficult time. Obviously we waited to go on the air until his family had been notified of this. To your point, Alisyn, certainly Anthony had his share of demons. He talked about drug abuse in his past in a different stage of his life. But I don't have any further information on what could have led to this event."