They were all there for him... Matthew Perry’s Friends co-stars turn up together for last farewell
THEY always described themselves as ‘best friends and soulmates’ in life.
And on Friday, the tearful surviving members of the hit show Friends gathered in Los Angeles to say a poignant farewell to castmate Matthew Perry, who died eight days ago aged just 54.
Jennifer Aniston, 54, Lisa Kudrow, 60, Courteney Cox, 59, Matt LeBlanc, 56, and David Schwimmer, 57, arrived together in a van with blacked-out windows for the one-hour service at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Los Angeles.
Perry, who played Chandler Bing in the hit TV series, was found dead on October 28 in his hot tub after a decades-long battle with drug and alcohol addiction.
A witness said: ‘It was so sad to see the cast together again, one last time, to say goodbye to Matty. They were hugging each other and looked heartbroken.
‘The Friends episodes always had names like “The one where…”
‘Well, this was the one where they said goodbye.’
Last week, his co-stars described his death as an ‘unfathomable loss’. The Los Angeles Police Department told The Mail on Sunday its investigation was ‘ongoing’ and pending toxicology and autopsy reports, which could ‘take weeks’.
At the service, Aniston was seen comforting Perry’s tearful mother Suzanne Morrison, 84, and father
John Bennett Perry, 82, as a small group of mourners stood at Perry’s graveside. A witness said: ‘It was a very private affair. Everyone looked heartbroken. There were a lot of hugs.’
The actor’s favourite song, Don’t Give Up, Peter Gabriel’s 1986 duet with Kate Bush, was played during the service. An onlooker said: ‘There were a lot of tears and some laughter.’ In his 2022 memoir Friends, Lovers And The Big Terrible Thing, Perry credited the song ‘with helping me through the darkest moments’.
The cemetery where Perry was buried is less than a mile from
Warner Brothers Studio where Friends was filmed from 1994 to 2004. Other famous names buried at Forest Lawn include Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor.
A source who was in recovery with Perry told the MoS that friends and family members believed he was sober at the time of his death.
The source said: ‘There was no sign that he had relapsed, but until the final toxicology reports come in we are waiting with a sense of dread. Matty relapsed many times during his life but in his final weeks he genuinely seemed in a good place.’
Model Athenna Crosby, who had lunch with Perry the day before he died, said he declined to even hold the wine list and ordered Diet Coke.
Prescription medications were found at his home in Pacific Palisades overlooking the ocean with friends believing he might have accidentally overdosed on antianxiety medication.
The source said: ‘Matty took meds for depression and anxiety and they don’t mix well with hot tubs. He was found totally submerged so we don’t know if he fell asleep and slipped under the water or if there was a medical issue, like a heart attack or stroke.’
Perry talked openly about his three-decade struggle with addiction and said it took 15 trips to rehab for him to get sober.
On Friday, his family announced a foundation has been established in his name to help fellow addicts.
Perry hoped his work with other recovering addicts would be his legacy. He said: ‘When I die, I don’t want Friends to be the first thing that’s mentioned – I want helping others to be the first thing.’
Perry, who never married or had children, reportedly left a fortune of more than £100million.
‘They were hugging and they looked heartbroken’