Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer, Lisa Kudrow Join in Chorus of Tributes for 'Friends' Co-Star Matthew Perry
"And you had heart. Which you were generous with, and shared with us, so we could create a family out of six strangers."
All of Matthew Perry’s five Friends castmates have spoken out about his death just over two weeks after Perry was found dead at his L.A. home at just 54 years old.
Matt LeBlanc, who played Joey Tribbiani to Perry’s Chandler Bing, wrote on Instagram “Matthew. It is with a heavy heart I say goodbye. The times we had together are honestly among the favorite times of my life. It was an honor to share the stage with you and to call you my friend. I will always smile when I think of you and I’ll never forget you. Never. Spread your wings and fly brother you’re finally free. Much love. And I guess you’re keeping the 20 bucks you owe me.”
Joey, LeBlanc’s character, and Chandler were best friends on the show and even roommates for a time. Chandler married Courteney Cox’s character, Monica Geller, and Cox herself released a statement to Instagram not long after LeBlanc did so.
“I am grateful for every moment I had with you Matty and I miss you every day,” she wrote. “When you work with someone as closely as I did with Matthew, there are thousands of moments I wish I could share. For now here’s one of my favorites. To give a little backstory, Chandler and Monica were supposed to have a one night fling in London. But because of the audience’s reaction, it became the beginning of their love story.” Adding a photo from 2001, she continued, “In this scene, before we started rolling, he whispered a funny line for me to say. He often did things like that. He was funny and he was kind.”
The next day, fellow castmates Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer released heartfelt tributes of their own: "Oh boy this one has cut deep," Aniston wrote on Instagram. "Having to say goodbye to our Matty has been an intense 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. 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."
Aniston continued that Perry knew how to make people laugh, and loved to do it: "As he said himself, if he didn't hear the 'laugh' he thought he was going to die," she wrote. "His life literally depended on it. And boy did he succeed in doing just that. He made all of us laugh. And laugh hard. 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."
She concluded her post "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."
In his own Instagram tribute, Schwimmer thanked Perry for 10 "incredible years of laughter and creativity," alluding to the decade-long run of Friends. "I will never forget your impeccable comic timing and delivery," he wrote. "You could take a straight line of dialogue and bend it to your will, resulting in something so entirely original and unexpectedly funny it still astonishes. And you had heart. Which you were generous with, and shared with us, so we could create a family out of six strangers."
Schwimmer concluded that he was smiling and grieving at the same time: "I imagine you up there, somewhere, in the same white suit, hands in your pockets, looking around—Could there BE any more clouds?"
Later today, Lisa Kudrow shared her own thoughts on Instagram: "Shot the pilot, Friends Like Us, got picked up then immediately, we were at the NBC Upfronts," she wrote. "Then...You suggested we play poker AND made it so much fun while we initially bonded. Thank you for that. Thank you for making me laugh so hard at something you said, that my muscles ached, and tears poured down my face EVERY DAY. Thank you for your open heart in a six way relationship that required compromise. And a lot of talking."
Alluding to Perry's struggles with addiction, she added, "Thank you for showing up at work when you weren't well and then, being completely brilliant. Thank you for the best 10 years a person gets to have. Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for all I learned about GRACE and LOVE through knowing you. Thank you for the time I got to have with you, Matthew."
Though the cast released individual statements, the five collectively—LeBlanc, Cox, Aniston, Schwimmer, and Lisa Kudrow—released a statement shortly after his death on October 28: “We are all so utterly devastated by the loss of Matthew,” it read. “We were more than just cast mates. 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.”
In addition to the joint statement, all five of Perry’s castmates attended his funeral on November 3 in L.A.
