Maybe controversial, but I think it’s always a mistake to idolize people instead of strictly something that they did. That’s enough, you enjoy their work, you don’t really need to turn it into an obsession about the person. You can just let the person be who they are and not some projection of your imagination.

I guess the question is always to what degree one can do those things without being the person.

You may admire the reckless behavior and carefree attitude of the rockstar in part because you’d like to worry a bit less about what other people thought or whether that party will compromise your sleep score.

Not because you’d like to do the exact same thing they do.

It's also worth flipping the view - imagine being idolized with all of your own faults and flaws?

To me, at least, the idea seems an uncomfortable and absurd idea from 1 person much less many people

I think this is a pragmatic healthy way to enjoy someone’s work. It is pretty much how I go about it. And it helps that my heroes are all long dead (Michael Collins, for instance ).

Where I think that does not work is when there is a deep resonance in shared experiences, these two had many including some really dark problems of addiction and thoughts of self-harm. I think the author is calling out all of it.

I believe the people begin to get idolized when they can repeatedly pull off interesting work. Then they themselves become interesting because they have some internal mix of factors going on that enables them to do what most people can’t and this makes them fascinating.

Very true. Bourdain did amazing things for the idea of "authentic" travel and cuisine (yes, as authentic as you can get with a camera crew and production staff).

But he was (obviously) deeply troubled.

Parts Unknown, S6E6 - Borneo, to me, shows this the most. He is invited by a tribe to slaughter a pig for the Gawai harvest festival and says that initially he thought he might have a hard time with it. "But, I have been hardened by the last ten years", and follows it by saying that it ends up being easy and that he only feels relief when the pig finally dies, and admits "I'm not sure what that says about me".

Maybe controversial, but your comment hints that you did not read the article.

It´s not about Bourdain being unpleasant at all, much by the contrary, its about the author realizing Bourdain path was not for everybody, and it seems, not for the author at the end.