Matthew Perry dies at 54: The world loses a friend

It was almost exactly a year ago to the day that Matthew Perry confessed his life in his autobiography “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing.” Now Perry, who became world famous with the role of Chandler Bing from “Friends,” has died. He was found lifeless in his Los Angeles home by an assistant after playing pickleball – a mix of tennis and squash – that day. The cause of death is still unclear.

For countless fans of the sitcom, Perry is part of something sacred. It’s been 19 years since Perry, of all people, said the last word in the sitcom as Chandler Bing. “Where?” Bing wanted to know from his friends where they could have another coffee. An absurd question, every fan knows that.

Matthew Perry is dead

While the sitcom is still a regular feel-good moment for millions of viewers today, it became a lifeline for Perry for years. As the son of an actor and a beauty queen who became parents very early and separated quickly after Perry was born, he realized as a small child that he had to use his humor to get his mother’s attention. Perry became a puppet and entertained those around him. He tried alcohol for the first time at the age of 14.

In his book, he described the moment after his friends had vomited next to him and he felt something completely different: “(…) I looked at the moon and realized that for the first time in my life nothing was bothering me. The World made sense, I wasn’t stooped and crazy.”

Addicted to alcohol and pills

It didn’t take long for alcohol to become Perry’s undoing. His move to Los Angeles only furthered the addiction and by the time he filmed the first season of “Friends” alongside Jennifer Aniston and Co., he was already an alcoholic. “Based on my weight, you can understand the progression of my addiction over the seasons – if I’m fat, it’s the alcohol, if I’m thin, it’s pills. If I have a beard, it’s a lot of pills,” he explained. The only season during which Perry was sober was the ninth.

Although he tried to keep his addiction a secret, his colleagues noticed that something was wrong with Perry. He finds loving words in the book, especially for Aniston. She always supported him. Perry was sometimes driven from the set to the rehab clinic.

The “Friends” stars became world famous almost overnight in the 1990s. The sitcom was so successful that the six of them were able to negotiate incredible salaries in the later seasons. At times they earned a million dollars a week.

But the flow of money wasn’t the only reason why Perry tried not to torpedo the filming with his addiction. It’s not uncommon for famous people to badmouth the very product (be it a song, a film or a book) that brought them fame. Things are different with Perry. He always knew how valuable and how magical “Friends” was. For himself, but also for his co-stars and the fans. Even in interviews, Perry never seemed annoyed or even arrogant when he was asked about his role for probably the hundredth time.

“Friends” reunion 2021

The magic of the six was also shown in the big reunion in 2021. Back then, too, you could feel the special chemistry between the six main actors while watching. So at the beginning of the reunion they stood on the empty set, the two apartments that over the years became a home not only for themselves, but for all fans around the world. “Could you BE any later?” Jennifer Aniston asked in a Chandler tone as Matthew Perry was the last to enter the set. “We are a family,” explained David Schwimmer, remembering that at the beginning of filming the six of them ate every lunch together.

Perry looked shaken at the time, and at times he mumbled incomprehensibly. A few years earlier, in 2018, he had reached rock bottom in his health. After a week of pain, he was taken to hospital, where he fell into a coma. “As soon as I was in a coma, I vomited into my ventilator, which is why the shit from the last ten days went straight into my lungs. My lungs didn’t particularly like it – the result: pneumonia – and then my colon burst. I repeat “It’s one more time for everyone in the back row: My colon burst,” said Perry.

At that time he only narrowly escaped death. “Alcohol wants you alone,” he wrote in his confessional. After years of addiction, it was all the more important for him to share his experiences with people and, ideally, to help those affected. “The only thing I did right was that I never gave up, I never raised my hands and said, ‘That’s enough, I can’t do it anymore, you win.’ And that’s why I stand tall now, ready for what’s next,” he wrote at the end of his book.

The void that Matthew Perry will leave behind is huge. “Friends” fans (like the author of these lines) will miss him sorely. At the latest when we open Netflix again, determined to watch something new, only to end up back at the sitcom.

In the words of his most famous role: “Could we BE any more heartbroken?”