Jennifer Aniston to Late Friend Matthew Perry: “We Were Always the Six of Us”
The Friends cast is rolling out touching tributes to the late Matthew Perry, with Jennifer Aniston now sharing a message about her late co-star and longtime friend.
“Oh boy this one has cut deep,” she began in an Instagram post shared on Wednesday. “Having to say goodbye to our Matty has been an insane wave of emotions that I’ve never experienced before. We all experience loss at some point in our lives. Loss of life or loss of love. Being able to really SIT in this grief allows you to feel the moments of joy and gratitude for having loved someone that deep.”
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She continued, “And we loved him deeply. 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 spoke of an out-of-the-blue text she received from Perry, who died unexpectedly at age 54 on Oct. 28, as an example of their friendship.
“In the last couple weeks, I’ve been pouring over our texts to one another. Laughing and crying then laughing again. I’ll keep them forever and ever. I found one text that he sent me out of nowhere one day. It says it all. (See the second slide…),” she continued.
The text, which she shared a screenshot of, showed Perry writing to her, “Making you laugh just made my day. It made my day :)”. Aniston also shared the photo he sent in her post, which showed Aniston on the Friends set laughing with Perry.
Aniston closed her post, which also included a Friends clip of Perry memorably making Aniston laugh during a touching Chandler (Perry)-Rachel (Aniston) moment, by writing, “Matty, I love you so much and I know you are now completely at peace and out of any pain. I talk to you every day… sometimes I can almost hear you saying ‘could you BE any crazier?’ Rest little brother. You always made my day.”
When promoting his 2022 memoir Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, Perry opened up about how his Friends family was there for him throughout his recovery. And particularly Aniston, whom he said stayed in close contact throughout his addiction struggles, which dated back to his mid-20s and early years on the show. “She was the one that reached out the most. You know, I’m really grateful to her for that,” he had shared during an interview with Diane Sawyer.
Aniston’s post follows on the heels of Friends stars Matt LeBlanc and Courteney Cox sharing their own tributes on social media.
On Oct. 28, the Los Angeles Police Department discovered Perry unresponsive in the hot tub at his Los Angeles home. His cause of death remains under investigation, with the L.A. County Medical Examiner’s office awaiting toxicology results after completing the autopsy.
Following the news of Perry’s death, all five of his Friends co-stars — also including Lisa Kudrow and David Schwimmer — released a joint statement, saying of their co-star and friend, who starred with them for 10 years on the hit NBC sitcom: “We are all so utterly devastated by the loss of Matthew. We were more than just castmates. We are a family. There is so much to say, but right now we’re going to take a moment to grieve and process this unfathomable loss. In time we will say more, as and when we are able. For now, our thoughts and our love are with Matty’s family, his friends, and everyone who loved him around the world.”
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