Matthew Perry, Who Starred In Friends As Chandler Bing, Has Died At 54
Matthew Perry, the actor and comedian best known for playing Chandler Bing throughout all 10 seasons of "Friends," has died at 54. The news was first reported by TMZ and later confirmed by the Los Angeles Times. Law enforcement sources told the L.A. Times that he was found unresponsive in a hot tub at his home at 4 p.m. on Saturday, October 28, 2023, and that there was no sign of foul play. TMZ's sources say that the apparent cause of death was drowning, also reporting that there was no indication of foul play and that no drugs were found at the scene.
Born in Plymouth, Massachusetts, Perry landed his first major role as Chazz Russell in the short-lived '80s sitcom "Second Chances." He racked up a number of guest roles in other TV shows and TV movies before landing a contract for a sitcom pilot called "L.A.X. 2194," a sci-fi comedy in which he would play a baggage handler at the titular airport, 200 years in the future.
At the same time, however, there was another buzzed-about pilot script for a show called "Friends Like Us," with a role that was perfect for Perry: the sarcastic, quick-witted Chandler Bing.
'It wasn't that I thought I could play Chandler, I was Chandler'
In his memoir, "Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing," published in 2022, Perry says that he begged his agents to get him a role in "Friends Like Us," but was told that it wasn't going to happen: "You're attached to the baggage handlers show. They've already measured you for the futuristic shirt and everything."
Perry was devastated. The "L.A.X. 2194" pilot was "terrible" and "Friends Like Us" was perfect. "It was as if someone had followed me around for a year, stealing my jokes, copying my mannerisms, photocopying my world-weary yet witty view of life," Perry explained. "It wasn't that I thought I could play 'Chandler,' I was Chandler."
Fortunately, the pilot he'd already signed up for was so terrible that it failed to get picked up, which freed Perry up for "Friends." He knew the pilot's script so well by that point that he didn't even need to bring the pages into his audition. He nailed the role of Chandler, and the rest is history.
'The Platonic Ideal of Pain'
Perry later opened up about his lifelong struggles with alcoholism and drug addiction, telling the BBC in a 2016 interview that he didn't remember around three years of his time on "Friends" — "I was a little out of it at the time — somewhere between seasons three and six." These struggles led to serious health problems, including a battle with pancreatitis caused by his alcholism, and a burst colon caused by opioid abuse. In his memoir, he describes the burst colon as "the worst Pain I've ever experienced — it was the Platonic Ideal of Pain."
Reflecting on his brushes with death, Perry wrote:
"I keep coming back to this singular, inescapable fact: I am alive. Given the odds, those three words are more miraculous than you might imagine; to me, they have an odd, shiny quality, like rocks brought back from a distant planet. No one can quite believe it. It is very odd to live in a world where if you died, it would shock people but surprise no one."
At the time the book was published, Perry told the New York Times that he had been clean for 18 months, after spending "$9 million or something trying to get sober." The timeline means that he would have been newly sober when the cast of "Friends" reunited for an NBC special in May 2021. Despite the words in his memoir, there's no doubt that his death has come as both a shock and a surprise to many of his fans, friends, and loved ones. He will be greatly missed.