Matthew Perry’s former fiancée looked back on the magic and pain of their “complicated” relationship in a touching Instagram tribute to the late actor, who died on Saturday at age 54.
“He would love for the world to talk about how talented he was,” Molly Hurwitz began her Monday post. “And he was really, really talented.”
In the 32-year-old literary executive’s caption alongside a photo of Perry silhouetted against a snowy cityscape, he further recalled how the two sat down together to rewatch Friends ahead of the reunion special, which aired on HBO in May 2021 to look at.
“‘Shit, I was so good!!!…'” she remembered him saying. “‘See what I did there???'”
The two rewound and studied the scenes, Hurwitz recalled. “Our respect and appreciation for humor bonded us. It was magical being with him as he rediscovered his brilliance.”
She and Perry began dating in 2018, with the Friends star proposing in November 2020. “I’ve decided to get engaged,” he told People. “Luckily, I was dating the most amazing woman on the planet at the time.”
But the couple called it off in June 2021, and Perry said he wished Hurwitz well. “Sometimes it just doesn’t work out,” he said, “and this is one of them.”
Hurwitz acknowledged the difficulties of their relationship in her Monday post. “I obviously knew this man in a completely different way,” she wrote. “Although I loved him more than I could understand, he was complicated and caused pain I had never known.”
For better or worse, she continued, no one in her adult life “has had a more profound influence on me than Matthew Langford Perry.” She said she was “tremendously grateful” for everything she learned from the relationship.
“I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Al Anon,” Hurwitz added, “an invaluable resource for those who love someone struggling with this devastating disease.”
Perry has been open about his battle with substance abuse and even made an oblique reference to his alcohol and opioid addictions in the title of his memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, detailing his decades-long journey to sobriety described in detail.
Although he avoids mentioning Hurwitz by name, Perry admitted in the book that he was “high” on “1,800 milligrams of hydrocodone” when he proposed in 2020. “And she knew it too,” he wrote. “And she said yes.”
Perry said he bought his then-fiancée a ring “because I was desperate that she would leave me. I didn’t want to be so hurt and alone during COVID.” After drying out in Los Angeles at a rehab facility in Switzerland, he realized he “wasn’t ready for any of this.”
“You got down on one knee to propose, which really hurt your stomach, remember?” Perry recalled his inner monologue. He added bluntly: “I couldn’t remember – of course we broke up.”
Hurwitz ended her tribute Monday by addressing Perry briefly and directly. “Matty, I’m relieved you’re at peace,” she wrote. “With kind regards, Moll-o-Rama (…fication).”