Jennifer Aniston admitted in a new Vanity Fair cover story that the cast of “Friends” had been “mourning” Matthew Perry long before his death at 54 years old in October 2023. Perry, who starred as Chandler Bing on NBC’s “Friends” opposite Aniston as Rachel Green, died from the “acute effects” of ketamine. He had long been outspoken about battling substance abuse in Hollywood as “Friends” turned him and the cast into global stars.
“We did everything we could when we could,” Aniston told Vanity Fair about trying to help Perry during his long struggle with addiction both during “Friends’” run and after. “But it almost felt like we’d been mourning Matthew for a long time because his battle with that disease was a really hard one for him to fight. As hard as it was for all of us and for the fans, there’s a part of me that thinks this is better. I’m glad he’s out of that pain.”
After Perry’s death, Aniston paid tribute to her friend and former co-star by sharing a heartfelt text message he once sent her. In it, Perry sent a photo of them laughing together on the “Friends” set and wrote: “Making you laugh just made my day. It made my day.”
“Having to say goodbye to our Matty has been an insane wave of emotions that I’ve never experienced before,” Aniston wrote in a statement on social media at the time. “He was such a part of our DNA. We were always the 6 of us. This was a chosen family that forever changed the course of who we were and what our path was going to be. For Matty, he KNEW he loved to make people laugh. As he said himself, if he didn’t hear the ‘laugh’ he thought he was going to die. His life literally depended on it. And boy did he succeed in doing just that. He made all of us laugh. And laugh hard.”
Aniston later spoke to Variety and revealed she had texted Perry on the day he died. She added of her co-star: “He was happy. He was healthy. He had quit smoking. He was getting in shape. He was happy — that’s all I know… He was not in pain. He wasn’t struggling. He was happy.”
