Jennifer Aniston has revealed that she mourned her Friends co-star Matthew Perry for a 'long time' before his death from a drug overdose in 2023. The actress, who played Rachel Green alongside Perry's Chandler Bing, spoke to Vanity Fair about his long struggle with addiction.
Aniston, 56, said: 'We did everything we could when we could. 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.' She added: '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.'
Perry, who died at 54, was open about his three-decade-long addiction, which led to 15 stints in rehab and several near-death experiences. In his 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, he wrote that fans could tell his condition by his weight and facial hair: 'When I'm carrying weight, it's alcohol; when I'm skinny, it's pills; when I have a goatee, it's a lot of pills.'
An investigation into Perry's death resulted in charges against five people, including two doctors and a dealer known as the 'ketamine queen'. Two days after his death, the Friends cast released a joint statement saying they were 'utterly devastated' and described themselves as 'a family'.
