Matthew Perry will forever be linked to his role as Chandler Bing in the iconic sitcom Friends, along with his five co-stars: Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer.
And even though their 10 season run on the show ended in May 2004, Perry knew he had a lifelong friend that he could count on in Aniston, despite his well-documented struggles with alcohol and drugs.
Just last year the actor, who was found dead in his jacuzzi at home on Saturday at the age of 54, revealed that they stayed in each other’s lives, and remained in close contact.
‘She was the one that reached out the most,’ the Williamstown, Massachusetts native told ABC’s Diane Sawyer of the actress who played Rachel Green during an interview in October 2022. ‘You know, I’m really grateful to her for that.’
Perry would go on to reveal that it was Aniston who confronted him first about his addictions during the filming of their hit sitcom when the symptoms were just to evident to ignore, if you’re a true friend.
Real life friends: Matthew Perry praised Jennifer Aniston for being a constant and reliable friend through all his ups and downs in life, including his struggles with drugs and alcohol; they are seen during Friends: The Reunion in May 2021
Loving hand: ‘She was the one that reached out the most. You know, I’m really grateful to her for that,’ Perry said of Aniston; they are seen in 1995
‘We know you’re drinking,’ Aniston, now 54, told Perry at the time, during a break in the shooting of Friends back when it was massively popular with fans.
‘Yeah, imagine how scary a moment that was,’ the actor said of his co-star during the conversation with Sawyer.
‘I should have been the toast of the town, but I was in a dark room meeting with nothing but drug dealers and completely alone,’ he would add, in a reference to his addiction.
When sharing about his substance abuse and the toll it began to take on his body, The Whole Nine Yards star confessed he was taking as many as 55 Vicodin pills a day, which contributed to his weight dropping to just 128 pounds.
‘I didn’t know how to stop,’ Perry admitted in an interview with People last year, before sharing an analogy that explains the power the drugs and alcohol had over him at the height of his TV career.
‘If the police came over to my house and said, “If you drink tonight, we’re going to take you to jail,” I’d start packing. I couldn’t stop because the disease and the addiction is progressive. So it gets worse and worse as you grow older,’ he explained.
In his own mind, Perry thought he was doing a perfectly fine job hiding his drug and alcohol usage from his co-stars, but at a certain point they all knew he was in trouble and did their best to support him.
‘[They] were understanding, and they were patient,’ he recalled of the Friends cast. ‘It’s like penguins. Penguins, in nature, when one is sick, or when one is very injured, the other penguins surround it and prop it up. They walk around it until that penguin can walk on its own. That’s kind of what the cast did for me.’
Friends for life: Perry would share his gratitude for all of his Friends castmates’ efforts to support him when he was struggling with drugs and alcohol: all six of the Friends stars are seen during the reunion show in May 2021
Lifeline: The actor revealed that part of his inspiration for writing his 2022 memoir – Friends, Lovers, And The Big Terrible Thing – was the hope that his stories could serve as kind of lifeline for others like Aniston was for him
Iconic: He rose to fame for his role as ‘Chandler Bing’ on the hit 90s sitcom, which ran for 10 seasons
For a while, Perry thought he could hide behind his infectious humor, and push forward with his life on the wings of the success of Friends.
‘I thought being funny all the time was how I would get through,’ he said. ‘I thought [Friends] was going to fix everything. It didn’t.’
Ultimately, Perry would get clean and sober in 2001, but he estimated that he relapsed ’60 or 70 times’ over the years, according to his 2022 memoir Friends, Lovers, And The Big Terrible Thing.
Along the way he had many stints in rehabilitation facilities and suffered through a number of serious health issues, including a five-month hospitalization in 2018 after his colon ruptured due to opioid overuse.
He was given just a two percent chance to live at one point while in the hospital, Perry confessed in the memoir, but in the end he would survive.
‘I’m an extremely grateful guy. I’m grateful to be alive, that’s for sure. And that gives me the possibility to do anything,” he shared with obvious emotion during the People interview in 2022.
Perry went on to reveal that part of his inspiration for writing an open and honest memoir, with all the ups and downs, was the hope that his stories could serve as kind of lifeline for others like Aniston was for him.
Perry died ‘after drowning in his jacuzzi at home,’ sources have told .com.
Perry died aged 54 ‘after drowning in his jacuzzi at home,’ sources have told .com; seen in 2022
In his last post to his Instagram, posted earlier this week, the star shared images of him in his pool
Law enforcement sources said the actor was found on Saturday at a home in Los Angeles after first responders were called to the scene at around 4pm (PDT) for a cardiac arrest.
Sources said he was found in a jacuzzi at the home but that no drugs were discovered at the scene – and there was no indication of foul play.
He had reportedly played a two-hour game of Pickleball prior to his death after which he sent his assistant out on an errand. When they returned, the assistant found Perry unresponsive and dialed 911.
A source told the outlet there was no sign of foul play, and that robbery-homicide detectives are investigating his death.