ROME – Italian actress Asia Argento seems to have criticised a new, unauthorised biography of late celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain on social media.

In an Instagram Story on Thursday, Argento posted a picture of someone wearing a shirt featuring an image of American professional bodybuilder Ronnie Coleman, with the words “Stop busting my balls” superimposed on it.

Those were the same last words she exchanged via text with Bourdain, which were quoted in the book, Down And Out In Paradise: The Life Of Anthony Bourdain, written by journalist Charles Leerhsen and which will be released on Oct 11.

Argento, 47, was in a two-year tumultuous relationship with the American author and TV host before he committed suicide at 61 in June 2018.

Bourdain was known for his book Kitchen Confidential (2000), and had hosted food and travel series such as No Reservations (2005 to 2012) and Parts Unknown (2013 to 2018).

On the day he died, he allegedly had a heated text exchange with Argento, which Leerhsen wrote in the beginning of the book.

“Is there anything I can do?” Bourdain asked.

“Stop busting my balls,” Argento said, to which Bourdain replied: “OK.”

According to The New York Times, Leerhsen wrote the book based on more than 80 interviews, and files, texts and e-mail from Bourdain’s phone and laptop.

Leerhsen wrote in the book that the chef seemed willing to do anything to preserve his relationship with Argento.

“I find myself being hopelessly in love with this woman,” Bourdain wrote to his wife Ottavia Busia, whom he had separated from in 2016 but had become his confidante.

Bourdain and Argento had also fought a day before he died.

“I am okay,” he texted her, according to an excerpt by NYT. “I am not spiteful. I am not jealous that you have been with another man.”

Argento was earlier seen dancing with French reporter Hugo Clement at the Hotel de Russie in Rome, where she and Bourdain had stayed together.

“I do not own you. You are free. As I said. As I promised. As I truly meant,” Bourdain said in the text exchange. “But you were careless. You were reckless with my heart. My life.”

Bourdain said he wanted to be honest with her, just as she was always honest with him. “I do not begrudge you this part of you. As I hope you will not begrudge me. But it’s that that stings,” he wrote.

He said he meant everything he said to her and hoped she had mercy on him for his feelings.

“I can’t take this,” Argento wrote, as she said she could no longer stay in a relationship with him and complained about his “possessiveness”.

According to NYT, Leerhsen had corresponded with Argento in a few e-mail, as she quoted Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde: “It is always Judas who writes the biography.”

The actress told the newspaper she has not read the book, adding: “I wrote clearly to this man that he could not publish anything I said to him.”