On October 28, Mathew Perry was found dead.
He gained sitcom superstar status as Chandler Bing on the show Friends, becoming a model of the ability to tease your pals as an expression of love. He was 54 years old . The cause was not likely to be determined for some time, but there was no indication of foul play. He was found unresponsive in a hot tub at his home in Los Angeles. Many were quick to point out his last Instagram post being of him in the same hot tub.
Quite eerie.
He had publicly struggled with drinking and drug use for decades, leading to hospitalizations for a range of ailments. By his own account, he had spent more than half his life in treatment and rehab facilities.
Mathew Perry’s Chandler cracked jokes. He was often inspired by the remarks of his roommate and best friend on the show, Joey Tribbiani (Matt LeBlanc), and Ross Geller (David Schwimmer). A sarcastic rhetorical question asked in a tone of mock disbelief was typical of his character Chandler. Perry himself brought this bit to the show. Similar to his co-stars, he eventually earned $1 million per episode making the show household. Behind the scenes of Friends, his substance abuse was already an issue.
In his 2022 memoir, “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing,” He recalled Jennifer Aniston, who starred in the show as Rachel Green, coming to his trailer one day and saying in a loving way, that it was clear he had been drinking too much. “We can smell it,” she added. He wrote about that moment, “hits me like a sledgehammer”. A Jet Ski accident in 1997 set in motion his addiction to pain killers. A year and a half later, he was taking 55 pills a day. He checked into a rehab facility weighing 128 pounds.
In his memoir, he described struggles with self-esteem and commitment through several romantic relationships, including some with actresses, like Julia Roberts. He never married or had children. Two years ago, Mr. Perry, by his own account newly sober appeared in a reunion of the Friends cast, in which its stars revisited some of the show’s most famous sets. That came after years in which Mr. Perry resisted talking about Friends.
He did gain a new attitude toward publicly recalling his past thanks to writing. In a single interview, he spoke again and again about the idea that his confessional stories might help fellow addicts. “Whenever I bumped into something that I didn’t really want to share,” he said, “I would think of the people that I would be helping, and it would keep me going.” He once stated how that he created the Perry house in Malibu as a sober living facility for men. His action in that field can be said to be his dying dream. He has something important to say to those like him and those who loved people like him. He said the legacy he wants to leave is the action he took to try and help people, followed by his Friends career.
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