Val Kilmer Stirs Controversy With 'Angry' Open Letter At Anthony Bourdain's 'Selfishness'

He’s right, but not subtle. Suicide has always been considered the most selfish, angry act but Mr. Kilmer could be gentler.

Bourdain was a closet case like Kilmer

Yes, Val...it's all about you...

Val is a buddhist and suicide is not so much a sin as the ultimate disrespect for all journeys. Except in the instance of the immolation of monks who are seen to be sacrificing themselves for the good their people. He's very angry with Bourdain obviously but I think he is giving everyone a bit of a lecture, like he's famous for.

“To express will by burning oneself, therefore, is not to commit an act of destruction but to perform an act of construction, i.e., to suffer and to die for the sake of one’s people. This is not suicide. Suicide is an act of self-destruction. This self-destruction is considered by Buddhism as one of the most serious crimes. The monk who burns himself has lost neither courage nor hope; nor does he desire non-existence…the monk believes he is practicing the doctrine of highest compassion by sacrificing himself in order to call the attention of, and to seek help from, the people of the world.”

WTF, was he always like this?

H

My old friend, whose body I found, wanted to hurt us, and his girlfriend, but had told his parents he loved them the night before. He knew the devastation we would go through and the pain we would feel at his method of suicide(execution type) and how our lives would be affected forever. The only extra key was his girlfriends’ but I ended up with it.

He just did not want to live anymore though he was a well respected chief resident. He was very emotionally fragile and my jealous orange Persian cat only ever liked him of all the men he met. He also was a Deadhead and had a history of drugs. So we were angry, heartbroken, mad as hell that we had to think of this painful method he chose to kill himself. We were a lot of residents, he was not alone. But he was alone in a way none of us understood. It’s not likely that we will get over this.

I’ve had the same cancer Mr. Kilmer had and couldn’t wait to fight it and resume my life. Suicide was never even an option. We can fight forever but the first few weeks of this trauma will make us all nuts. You can count on it. Then you will mourn later when the shock wears off. I mean WE will mourn. This is not rational behavior to me so I will not even try.

Oh also, I investigated that kid up and down, every movie he rented, every call he made, every bit of food he bought. Nothing. The only thing I noticed was a strange attachment to his girlfriend. Too attached. Locking himself up in the bathroom for 45 minutes crying after a fight. Angry at himself for falling for a LI girl like his mother (?) who he did not want to marry (obviously). I was troubled by all this but obviously we were too late.

i am amazed. A man in great emotional pain kills himself. Kilmer's response? "Look at meeeeeeee."

Wow.

Cut or uncut? Well DL?????

They read the will and when Val found out Bourdain left him a year's supply of Big Macs he calmed right down.

"Oh the darkness.

Oh the dark thick pain of loss. The selfishness.

How many moments away were you from feeling the love that was universal. From every corner of the world you were loved. So selfish. You've given us cause to be so angry. A spiritual guide once told me suicide is the most selfish act a human can execute and I was confused but she explained there's just no mental place further away from humanity and purpose than the hypnotized numbness that creates the false picture of despair, that forces the victim, unaware, to believe, life's legacy is over. That there is no more service. No more task. No more love left to give to another to to be given. Nothing to heal.

On a cloudy day that is so cloudy it's one large mask of grey, does it mean there are no more clouds or parting of clouds, ever? Or that the burning life giving sun is not on its way or that it is already there is ones powers of imagination and perception will only open like with the ease of a child's mind, open to see and feel the peace and reassurance if the heat and light that buried and the light that annihilates the shadows that frighten, that may have even been until moments ago absolute proof that there were no there are no monsters in the room.

So what? I hear you took your life in paris. What hotel? Did you relapse? Did you just get home from the best meal of your life? Did you cheat on your girl. Those of us that knew you are shocked and angry and angry and angry selfishly angry, for what you just did to us. Millions I should think. At least a million people like me who imagine they know you. Some imagine they know you even well. But you heard that phone ringing, you felt it buzzing in your coat or pants pocket, vibrating a million times, but you didn't answer it. You let it ring out. Did you bleed out? Did you suffocate? Did you jump. No you didn't jump. Is it important we know how you did it? No. But that you did it. One of the tentative titles of my new studio is Bourdains. Because you've come to realize and exemplify a steady however dim hope, that history is bending towards justice. Would you have taken your life two years ago when like me you were unable to take in food and move it with your tongue over your taste buds because your tongue was too swollen? Is too swollen. I think and dream and plan on eating and tasting and enjoying every meal I've ever enjoyed and every meal I've learned to enjoy in my imagination, although I've never met a meal I didn't like in the last 40 years except anything with too much cilantro. Was that it? You woke up and realized you were no longer hungry. And that even with a young daughter at home you would never be hungry enough again to want to take in breath. Was your father's hate so still so present as to cloud over every last sunny moment of every single damn day Anthony. (MORE-->)

"Oh darkness. My prayer before the light breaks this morning of June 8th, is that it doesn't ever again fool another warrior like you, who chased the hot slice of momentary satisfaction around the world 15 times, but found no reason for 16. Anthony Bourdain killed himself. At least you had that beer with Obama on a busy street in Vietnam, in a plastic seat, with your favorite type of meal, spicy noodles and goop, and he gave you hope, I saw it in your eyes when you asked him, as if you were 12, to your father, "Are we going to be all right?" And Obama reminded you and us all that history is not written in a straight line. But yet it is written. And it bends towards justice. You found and showed us pockets of freedom from individuals around the world, from your pirate ship of tv and with a crew of brilliant writers producers camera and sound people, assistants, executives and lawyers who saw you clearly and loved you dearly, and went the extra mile on paper, to enable you to walk there, in the rain, before daylight, and waiting for the sun, reflect quietly on the pageantry, about to unfold. You could have and should have given it one more shot. Sometimes we must live in service to another's life and live with no hope of equality. Life isn't fair that way. Who says you had a right to take away all this love from us so soon? Oh the darkness. The darkness on the edge of town. "There's a darkness in the edge of town…"

You left too soon my friend. I fell asleep to watching you enjoy Uruguay last night. It was a rerun but I always find something I didn't see before… you left too soon. And I'm going to prove it…"

Val is free to react however he wants. What is with the judgmental policing, DL or not?

At the very least, be happy he didn't write "sending prayers."

I lost an important person in my life to suicide just over a year ago. I wasn't pissed, I was relieved. Relieved they ended their pain and a byproduct of that was, yes, I didn't have to worry or care about their needs anymore (he was a substance abuser not interested in help).

If Val sounds self-centered it doesn't prove he actually is. Maybe he lost someone too or contemplated suicide himself.

R14, So you're sending a sympathy card to Val instead of Bourdains family, cuz Val is the one who's suffering, right?

We know from a reiable pron source that Val is both homosexual and hung!

"At least a million people like me who imagine they know you."

That's what is at the heart of every controversy these days. At least a million people imagining they know something.

Damn R17, that is profound.

It's downright tragic that people only see other people's selfishnesss and eager to point it out to them or others while willingly ignoring their own.

Kilmer is not wrong. He's someone who endured a lot of pain and suffering and continues to live through it. I find the veneration given to Bourdain a lot weirder given how he chose to end his life. I think it's fascinating how we treat mental illness. We show compassionate toward those who choose suicide, but do nothing, or worse, openly mock those who display symptoms of mental illness. Funny that people accuse Kilmer of only thinking of himself when it's apparent that Bourdain did the same thing when he chose to leave his friends and family alone.

OMG what happened to Val? Time machine set to 100? What the hell, he did not age well at all.

Tell me about it...

R20, so what you're saying is we should be kind to mentally ill people. And yet, Bourdain was selfish to kill himself. So, we don't judge the mentally ill until we do judge them.

Not only that r23, but Soylent Green is people and Beyonce is an MK Ultra monarch and THERE IS NO COLLUSION! says a Trump minion, so you know it must be true.

Because Twitter. Because, gosh, mob mentality is just so great!

R24 you need that remedial English class.

[quote]OMG what happened to Val? Time machine set to 100? What the hell, he did not age well at all.

Damn, he's battling cancer. Pay attention.

I still find it hard to believe Bourdain committed suicide. In this day and PC age, is that “better” than stating he accidentally died? Is the insurance money better for a suicide than a sex act under the influence gone wrong?

A lot of insurance companies don't cover suicide. Think of it as elective surgery extreme. An accidental death would be better.

The media already talks about grabbing woman by the pussy and Trumps golden showers, they probably didn't want to go there again with auto erotic asphyxiation. But at this point, why not.

R12/R13 is that the letter Val wrote? Geez, it's obvious he was on something when he typed out that rambling mess. I'm guessing booze, Ambien, and Vicodin.

I think Val may be the one who relasped.

R4- I thought he was a Christian Scientist, that’s why his cancer treatment has been ‘unconventional’.

You’re right at least according to Wikipedia m, R32.

Just read some on Christian Science. I knew about the attitude on medical treatment. But wow.

Kill yourself, Val.

He can't read it!!!

I

Val Kilmer has had a long, difficult fight to beat cancer and stay alive. I understand why he might feel angry and bitter and resentful when someone ends his owb life, after Kikmer has desperately worked to keep his going.

But he is wildly wrong about the causes of suicide. And no one should tweet everything he thinks.

Is that Rosacea on VK's face?

Just remember, he used to be handsome and is also a good actor.

So one attention whore is trying to steal the spotlight from another. Welcome to America in the Social Media age.

He’s not right, R1.

It's your choice whether you stay on this planet or not, it's no one else's business what path you follow, so you must make up your own mind. If you're asking ( wanting) for someone else to give you a reason to stay and thus relieving yourself of the responsibility of making your own decisions. This is typically human these days, giving up sovereignty of self and soul so as not to have to think, or, take responsibility for your actions, or lack of. This is truly a remarkable to place to be, yet we are so twisted in our thinking, that of separation, winner and loser, good and bad, right and wrong, that no one knows what they want, much less what they can have. I advise a quest, a quest inside to discover Yourself, Why you came to this planet, What you had hoped to achieve while here. Otherwise, it's like being in the middle of a game and walking out halfway, forgetting why you came to play, forgetting you were playing in the first place. This is a tough place to exist, if we don't work to remember who and what we are as Spirits incarnated here in human form, getting a new opportunity every moment to express who and what we are in that moment. All we've ever had it This Moment, so, how are you going to express who you are Now, someone lost, or, someone seeking?

i guess they forgot life just is a chair of bowlies......

Val has been through a lot.....

I respect him.

Getting fat in Hollywood.......

that is like death several times over....