Actor Matthew Perry, known for his role as Chandler Bing – the sarcastic and comical boyfriend on the popular series Friends – has died at the age of 54, authorities confirmed to our sister network NBC News after the news was first published on the portal. TMZ Entertainment.
Perry died “presumably drowned” and his body was found in the hot tub of a home in Los Angeles, California, police sources and a representative for the actor told NBC News.
Authorities told NBC News they received a 911 call for “a water rescue” at 4:07 p.m. ET.
No crime is suspected as the investigation is ongoing.
Further details about his death this Saturday are currently not available.
The LA Times newspaper, citing police sources, reported that emergency crews were called to the home that Saturday, where they found the actor unconscious in a hot tub.
Matthew Perry in a file photo. Matt Sayles/APPerry played Chandler for ten seasons: he became a character known and loved by audiences.
He also appeared in other roles in the cinema and published the memoir “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir” in 2022, in which he discussed his already known alcohol and pill addiction problems that tormented him for years, especially while he was employed with the fame that came to him from one of the most popular series on American television.
Matthew Perry in “Friends” Gary Null / NBC Universal“My friends call me Matty… and I should be dead”
Born in Massachusetts to an American father and Canadian mother, Perry admitted to the LA Times in April that he dreamed of being famous, but when he achieved it, he went through hell.
“No one wanted to be more famous than me,” he said. “I was convinced it was the answer. “I was 25 years old, it was the second year of ‘Friends’ and after eight months I realized that the American dream didn’t make me happy, that it didn’t fill the gaps in my life,” he confessed.
“Fame doesn’t do what you think it does. It was all a trick,” he admitted.
During the series’ ten-year run, which aired from 1994 to 2004, the cast member suffered from severe addiction issues to various substances, which caused him to lose or gain weight drastically from season to season.
“If you see how my body weight fluctuates from one season to another, if I have more weight, it’s because of the alcohol; If I’m thin, it’s because of the pills. If you see me with a beard, it’s because of all the pills,” he wrote in his book, published at the end of 2022.
[Alcohol, píldoras y 15 veces en rehabilitación: el actor de ‘Friends’ Mathew Perry describe su lucha contra la adicción en un libro]
At one point, he confessed, he took up to 55 tablets of the anesthetic Vicodin every day. He also went to rehab at least 15 times and underwent more than a dozen surgeries related to his addiction.
In his book he says: “My friends call me Matty… and I should be dead.”
Known and admired by many
Although Perry began her career early, she gained worldwide recognition with Friends, even now that the series continues to air on streaming platforms.
The cast of “Friends”.NBC Universal / NBC UniversalChandler, the acerbic statistical analyst, was one of six friends who examined the everyday situations of a group of twenty-somethings in New York City in the mid-1990s.
Most of the show’s comedic weight, recorded with a live audience laughing at his jokes, weighed on the actor, who admitted that “I felt like I would die if they didn’t laugh.”
With his character, a son of divorced parents who hated Thanksgiving, the creators of the series portrayed the dilemmas of office workers and their crises, fertility problems in a couple and adoption.
Although Perry ventured into movies with roles in films like The Whole Nine Yards and Fools Rush In, she didn’t become as famous on the big screen as her co-star actress Jennifer Aniston.
None of the “Friends” have yet commented on the death of the actor whose character spoke the last line of the series… And yes, it was a joke.