Matthew Perry’s death was a shock to the world. The Friends star passed away at his home outside of Los Angeles, California, on October 28, and days later, he was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park. The entire cast of Friends, including Jennifer Aniston, were in attendance to bid a final farewell to their beloved co-star and friend.

Aniston became a vital person for Perry outside of the spotlight. According to him, she was the one friend who helped him the most with his addiction and supported him all the way.

Matthew Perry’s family, friends, and colleagues were shocked when the news about his death was made public. But it appears that Jennifer Aniston has had the most difficulty dealing with it.

As of today, Friends is considered one of the biggest sitcoms in history, staying on television for ten seasons and a total of 236 episodes. Moreover, the six main actors became celebrities for life, reaching superstardom worldwide. And they were paid handsomely – in fact, Matthew Perry and his five co-stars were said to have been received a whopping $1 million per episode during the last season.

Matthew Perry on ‘Friends’

Matthew Perry was the last one to be cast, and it was a home run. Sadly, his time on the show was also when his life took a sharp turn as his addiction became more serious.

It took a long time, but in 2021, David Schwimmer, Courteney Cox, Jennifer Aniston, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow, and Matthew Perry reunited for the first time, reminiscing and remembering their time on Friends. It was bittersweet and emotional, as their lifelong bond will never fade.

For Matthew Perry, it became extra emotional. He nearly began crying.

“The best way that I can describe it is after the show was over, at a party or any kind of social gathering, if one of us bumped into each other, that was it,” he explained on HBO’s Friends: The Reunion special. “That was the end of the night. You just sat with the person all night long, and that was it.”

“You apologized to the people you were with, but they had to understand you had met somebody special to you and you were going to talk to that person for the rest of the night. And that’s the way it worked,” he added.

Matthew Perry loved his time on Friends, though there were several years when his addiction and alcoholism had escalated, with his co-stars trying to help him in the best way possible

Although he said it “felt like we’d all been together in a previous life,” he also worried about being unable to work on other projects, given that everyone thought of him as Chandler.

“I’m not complaining. If you are going to be typecast, that’s the way to do it,” Matthew Perry wrote in his memoir. “But in recent years, I’ve come to understand just what Friends means to people. And we knew from the very start that it was something very, very special.”

Matthew Perry didn’t recall three years of filming ‘Friends’

Matthew Perry’s character, Chandler Bing, was not at all what the actor was when the camera was shut off. In 1997, Perry was in a jet ski accident. He was prescribed Vicodin, and his addiction went in a downward spiral.

“It wasn’t my intention to have a problem with it,” he told People in 2002. “But from the start, I liked how it made me feel, and I wanted to get more.”

While Perry was always showing up to work and cracking jokes as Chandler, outside of work, his addiction worsened.

“I had this odd rule that I would never drink on a set,” Perry told The New York Times. “I went to work in extreme cases of hangovers. It’s so horrible to feel that way and have to work and be funny on top of that.”

“I ​don’t remember three years of it,” Perry revealed in an interview with the BBC about filming Friends while struggling with his addiction. “I was a little out of it at the time — somewhere between Seasons 3 and 6.”

As mentioned, the cast became a family. Therefore, it was easier for them to recognize that something was wrong with Perry and decide to act.