AGI – Goodbye to Matthew Perry, the Chandler of the wildly popular 90s sitcom “Friends.” The American actor died at the age of 54apparently drowned in a hot tub at his Los Angeles home.
The alarm was raised by the assistant who sent him on an errand after a two-hour game of pickleball, a type of padel, and found him lifeless when he returned. No drugs were found in the home of the actor, who has a history of addiction to painkillers, alcohol and cocaine.
Matthew Perry was famous all over the world for “Friends”.the cult sitcom about six friends set in New York, in which he appeared in all 234 episodes spread over ten seasons, which were filmed between 1994 and 2004. His figure, Chandler Muriel BingThe son of an erotica writer and a drag queen, who divorced when he was nine, he was always tormented.
His withering sarcastic jokes and occasional smoking were a way to exorcise disappointment over family problems, an unsatisfying job and the inability to find a permanent partner. The role also earned him a Primetime Emmy nomination in 2002.
Among the first to mourn the death was Maggie Wheeler, Janice of “Friends,” who recalled how the joy she brought to “so many” will survive a “too short” existence: “I feel truly privileged for every creative moment we shared“he wrote on Instagram. Warner Bros TV, which produced the sitcom, expressed “dismay” and remembered him as “an incredibly gifted actor.” “The impact of his comedic genius was felt around the world.”
Moved by Perry’s death he is also the Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau, his schoolmate. “Matthew Perry’s death is shocking and sad,” he wrote about all the laughter, Matthew. You were loved and will be missed.
His difficult life
Perry was born in Massachusetts but grew up in Ottawa, Canada, where he was a schoolmate of future Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in elementary school. As a teenager, he moved to Los Angeles, where he became an actor and appeared in television shows such as Growing Pains.
As the son of separated parents (his father had abandoned his mother when he was a child), he learned early on to use humor to get his mother’s attention. At 14, the first encounter with alcohol and the realization that it was about him”had a completely different effect” than friends: While they were vomiting, he felt a sense of well-being “lying on the grass”: “Nothing bothered me.” From that moment on he started drinking and never stopped.
When he got it the role of Chandler Bing, he was already an alcoholic. Although Perry tried to hide his condition, his fellow cast members (particularly Jennifer Aniston) were “understanding and patient.” “It’s like with penguins: when one is sick or injured, the others surround him and support him, staying around him until the penguin can walk on his own. That’s exactly what the cast did for me.” So Perry had been alternating rehabilitation and recovery for years. The only season where he was sober the entire time was season nine. “And guess what movie I was nominated for best actor for? Maybe he should have told me something.”
Affable, optimistic and always ready to joke on screen, Matthew had recently spoken about his personal difficulties, particularly his addiction to painkillers, alcohol and drugs, even during the filming of the “sitcom”: in his memoir “Friends”, published in 2022. , Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing,” had revealed shocking details about his life and hospital stays for detoxification. The book began with a shocking sentence: “Hello, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. Friends call me Matty. And I should be dead.”
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LEE CELANO / AFP
the cast of Friends
In 2016, he told the BBC that he couldn’t remember three years of filming Friends because of his addiction at the time: “I drank, then opiates, then I drank, then cocaine… I recognized it every season “I didn’t want to watch it anymore, but then I started watching it again because it’s amazing how the show has touched the hearts of different generations.” Perry had also appeared in several films, including 1997’s ” Apple and Tequila” and
“Almost Heroes” from 1998 and “The Whole Nine Yards” from 2000.
Matthew Perry’s alcohol addiction had worsened in 1997 after a jet ski accident: due to some very painful injuries, he began using an opioid painkiller, Vicodin, at times even taking up to 55 tablets a day. In 2018, when he was 49, the actor suffered a gastrointestinal perforation caused by extreme opioid use. “After two weeks in a coma, my family was told that my chance of survival was only two percent“.
He managed, but as he recovered and his colon healed, the actor had to use a colostomy bag and over that long period, almost a year, he woke up covered in his own feces “50 to 60” times. When he appeared disheveled and overweight in public in recent months, he had expressed fears that he had slipped back into old habits. Earlier this week, he was seen at a Los Angeles restaurant, The Apple Pan, having lunch with a friend, looking disheveled and dejected.
It’s strange that the latest post on Instagram shows him in a hydromassage tub: relaxing at night, listening to music on headphones and looking out at the city. A caption next to it. “Oh, swirling hot water makes you feel so good? “I am Mattman”: a reference that fans immediately associated with his desire to play Batman, the fictional superhero.
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