Actor Matthew Perry, favorite American television sitcom star 1990s ‘Friends’, in which he played Chandler Bing, died Saturday after apparently drowning in his home’s hot tub. He was 54 years old.

The Los Angeles Times and the website TMZ, citing police sources, reported that the American-Canadian artist was found dead in his jacuzzi in Los Angeles. NBC, which aired “Friends” for 10 years, confirmed his death in a statement on social media platform X. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was a classmate of Perry’s in Ottawa, called it “shocking and sad.” fact.

Perry became world famous at the age of 24 thanks to his role as the funny, sarcastic, lovesick and sometimes irritable Chandler Bing on Friends. The successful television series that ran from 1994 to 2004 and also brought fame to its co-stars: Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer and Matt LeBlanc. The actor had been acting for almost a decade before taking part in the series, which ran for 234 episodes, but it was Friends that launched him onto the world stage.

According to the actor, he reached a level of fame that remained long after the TV series ended. After the end of “Friends”, Matthew Perry starred in some smaller projects, as well as single episodes of the TV series “The Good Wife” and “Cougar Town”.

Perry’s parents were actor John Bennett Perry and Suzanne Marie Langford, who was press secretary to the late former Prime Minister of Canada, Pierre Trudeau (father of the current Prime Minister of Canada). After his parents divorced when he was just a few months old, he lived between Montreal, Canada and Los Angeles, where he eventually settled. Perry began acting at the age of 10. When she started filming Friends, she was struggling with alcohol addiction, and when the series ended, she said:I was really involved in a lot of trouble».

Due to his addiction, the actor went through obvious physical changes, which were noticed by the viewers of the series. During this time, Perry stated that his co-stars always tried to help him. His life was full of ups and downs, as he shared in his memoir Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Things. “There were years when I was sober during this time. Season 9 was the year I was sober throughout“, he recalled. This was Perry’s first Emmy nomination for his role in the series.

In the following seasons, he dropped to 128 pounds and took 55 Vicodin pills, a pain reliever derived from a synthetic opioid, every day. His substance abuse got so bad there are three whole series of ‘Friends’ he can’t remember, he told Chris Evans on BBC Radio 2’s ‘Breakfast Show’.

The series

In his memoir, the actor wrote that he went through various rehab programs, claiming that “spent $9 million to try to get sober». At times, his battle with addiction has left him feeling stigmatized. He said this was why he does not support Alcoholics Anonymous: “It suggests that there is a stigma and that we should hide“, he said in an interview with the “New York Times”.

In his memoir, Perry also said he nearly died in 2018 when his colon “exploded” from an opioid overdose. He was in a coma for two weeks, spent five months in hospital and had to use a colostomy bag for nine months.

In the mid-1990s, Perry dated actress Julia Roberts. They met when she had a cameo in the Thanksgiving special of “Friends” season two. The episode – in which Roberts played Chandler’s old classmate and his new romantic interest – was one of the most popular in the show’s history, attracting 53 million viewers. There was chemistry between the two off-screen as well and they dated between 1995 and 1996.

Perry

Perry also dated “Baywatch” star Yasmine Bleeth and had brief flings with Neve Campbell (from the Scream saga), Lauren Graham (Gilmore Girls) and Lizzy Caplan (Masters of Sex). In an interview with Entertainment Weekly in 1997, he said: “If you have dinner with someone and the next day the country thinks you’re having an affair, it gets a little weird. I was confused about dating before Friends. All these things make it even more confusing.” He added: “I still have the best job anyone could ask for».

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In 2019, the actor began a relationship with 27-year-old literary agent Molly Hurwitz, to whom he became engaged in 2020. They called off their engagement in 2021.