Man, I really wasn’t trying to tear up on a Wednesday.
Last month, we learned that Matthew Perry, known for his legendary role as Chandler Bing on Friends, had passed away at the age of 54 after an apparent drowning at his Los Angeles home. It was heartbreaking news for so many across the country, as Friends is still one of the most popular TV shows to this day, even though its last episode aired back in 2004.
I can’t imagine the pain that Perry’s fellow cast and crew members are going through, as they all appeared to become incredibly close throughout the 10 seasons of the show. Yesterday, Matt LeBlanc (AKA Joey Tribbiani on Friends) shared a heartfelt tribute to his late buddy on Instagram, writing:
“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.”
On top of that, Courteney Cox, who played Monica on the show, also shared a heartfelt tribute, writing:
“I am so grateful for every moment I had with you Matty and I miss you every day. 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.
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.”
And now, Jennifer Aniston, who played Rachel Green on the show, is joining in.
This morning, she posted another deep note to her late friend and co-star:
“Oh boy this one has cut deep… 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. 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. 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.
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…”
