Matthew Perry, Chandler Bing in the popular series Friends, has died at the age of 54. The American actor was found dead in his home in the Los Angeles area, in the jacuzzi he had at home, suggesting that he drowned. According to rumors, no drugs were found in the house.
Perry, again according to the first rumours, had done physical activity in the morning before his death. He would return home after two hours of pickleball (a racket sport, similar to tennis, but played on a smaller court) and send his assistant to run errands. Once he returned, the man called the emergency number 911, around 4pm local time, because Perry was not responding.
Perry had received several Emmy Award nominations, and is best known for participating in the television series Friends in which he played the character of Chandler Bing for ten years. The news of his death was reported by the gossip site TMZ and the LA Times.
«We are devastated. It was a true gift to all of us. Our thoughts go out to his family, his loved ones and all his fans” is the memory posted on Sunday morning by the official Friends account.
Addiction to drugs and alcohol
Matthew Perry was famous throughout the world for his role in the hit 90s sitcom, which aired for 10 seasons and in which he took part in all 234 episodes. Affable, optimistic and ready to joke on screen, Matthew had recently talked about his personal difficulties, in particular his addiction to drugs and alcohol: a memoir of heartbreaking beauty (“Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing”) in which he had shared shocking details about his life and past problems.
The son of separated parents (his father had abandoned his mother when he was a child), he learned early to use humor to get his mother’s attention. Born in Massachusetts in 1969, Perry grew up in Ottawa, Canada, where he attended elementary school with Justin Trudeau, Canada’s current prime minister. At 14, his first encounter with alcohol, which “had a completely different effect” on him than on his friends. While they had vomited, he “lying on the grass” had felt a sensation of well-being: “Nothing bothered me.” From that moment on, he started drinking and never stopped. When he got the role of Chandler Bing, he was already an alcoholic. In 2016, in an interview he said he didn’t remember filming three seasons of Friends. Even though Perry tried to hide his condition, his castmates (Jennifer Aniston, in particular) had been “understanding and patient.”
– The last photo with his father John, published on Instagram The cast of Friends and the Perry House
«It’s like penguins: when one is sick or injured, the others surround him and support him, they walk around him until the penguin can walk on his own. That’s kind of what the cast did for me.” So Perry had alternated rehabilitation and recovery for years. The only season in which he had been sober the entire time was the ninth. «And guess which one I was nominated for best actor in? Maybe he should have told me something.” Matthew Perry’s addiction to alcohol had worsened in 1997 after an accident on a jet ski: due to some very painful injuries, he began to use an opioid painkiller, Vicodin, and at times he even took up to 55 tablets per day.
In 2013, Perry revealed to People that he didn’t get sober until he was 43. The previous year he had turned his Malibu beach house into a “sober living” facility for ex-alcoholics called The Perry House and has since tried to dedicate his time and resources to helping other addicts. “You can’t have a drug problem for 30 years and then expect to solve it in 28 days,” Perry said in an interview in 2015. “I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in my life and a lot of wonderful accolades, but the thing better than me is that if an alcoholic comes to me and says: “Can you help me stop drinking?”, I answer: “Yes, I know how to do it”.
Matthew Perry, August 19, 1969 – October 28, 2023
Gastrointestinal perforation
In 2018, when he was 49 years old, the actor suffered a gastrointestinal perforation caused by extreme opioid use. “After two weeks in a coma, my family was told that I only had a two percent chance of surviving.” He made it, but while he recovered and his colon healed, the actor had to use a colostomy bag. In recent months, when he appeared disheveled and overweight in public, he had raised fears that he had fallen back into old habits.
The latest post on Instagram
Earlier in the week, he was spotted hanging out at a Los Angeles restaurant, The Apple Pan
having lunch with a friend, disheveled and looking dejected. Curious that the latest post on Instagram shows him immersed in a hydromassage tub: he relaxes at night, wearing headphones for music, while looking at the city. A caption next to it. “Oh, so swirling hot water makes you feel good? I am Mattman”: a reference that followers immediately linked to his desire to play Batman, the fictional superhero.