While not every TV show cast gets along as well off-camera as they do on screen, one of the things that made the Friends cast so special — and one of the best sitcoms of all time — is just how close the six actors were in real life. When Matthew Perry died in October 2023 in a drowning due to the effects of ketamine, his former co-stars were “utterly devastated,” saying they’d lost not just a castmate but a family member. As hard as the year has been for those closest to the Chandler Bing actor, an insider said there’s actually one positive aspect that’s come from it.
If we’re looking at the Friends characters, it was probably Lisa Kudrow’s Phoebe Buffay who was best able to find the silver lining in every cloud, and while that’s an admittedly tall order in this case, if there’s any good that Kudrow, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, David Schwimmer and Matt LeBlanc could take from Matthew Perry’s tragic passing at age 54, a source told Life&Style it’s this:
It’s bittersweet, but his death brought them all even closer. They check in with each other more often now. They renewed a text chain they used to have back in the day.
We’ve seen evidence of how close the six Friends leads have remained in the 20 years since its finale aired. Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox having dinner together, Lisa Kudrow getting lots of birthday love and all of them making cameo appearances on each other’s projects. Aniston even said she was texting with Matthew Perry the day he died.
However, it seems like the tragedy has only strengthened the bond of the five remaining cast members, and it sounds like now they’re keeping in touch pretty regularly. Lisa Kudrow even started rewatching Friends in Matthew Perry’s honor.
The actor who made us laugh so much as Chandler Bing even addressed how important they all were to each other during the Friends reunion in 2021 (available to stream with a Max subscription), saying that anytime they would run into one of the castmates at a party, “you apologized to the people you were with, but they had to understand you had met somebody special to you and you were going to talk to that person for the rest of the night.”
For someone who is being remembered as a man who embodied the “I’ll Be There for You” theme song, one would have to think Matthew Perry would be happy to know he was able to bring his friends together in this way. And if there are silver linings to be found, It’s also undeniable that the actor was able to help so many people by speaking candidly about his addictions. Perry will always be remembered for his role on Friends, but helping people was the legacy he hoped to leave behind.
In addition to streaming all 10 seasons of Friends on Max, you can continue to see the cast on new projects, and we’ve also compiled a list of the best Matthew Perry movies and shows to remember him by.
