Matthew Perry, Chandler on 'Friends,' dies at 54

Actor Matthew Perry, known around the world for his role as Chandler Bing, Monica Geller's sarcastic boyfriend on the TV sitcom Friends, was found dead on Saturday. This has been confirmed exclusively by TMZ, which states that Perry has been found dead at his home in Los Angeles (California, USA) after 54:<> p.m. He was <>. According to the publication, and as confirmed by the city's police department, which is investigating the death, he has been found drowning in his jacuzzi.

It was becoming the funny, ironic, infatuated and sometimes irascible Chandler Bing during the 234 episodes that aired of Friends — between 1994 and 2004 — that gave Perry global fame at just 24 years old, along with his co-stars Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer and Matt LeBlanc. He had already been in the world of acting for almost a decade, but it was thanks to the series that he reached a level of fame that, in fact, continued to haunt him until the end of his days. Since the series ended, Perry has participated in some minor projects or in individual episodes of series such as The Good Wife or Cougar Town.

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Matthew Perry Spent $9 Million Detoxing From Alcohol and Drugs

When he began filming the series, he used alcohol and drugs, as he himself said, but by the time he finished it, at the age of 34, "I was already in a lot of trouble." He went through obvious physical changes for viewers and acknowledged that his teammates always helped him. His life was full of powerful chiaroscuros, as he shared in his biography Friends, Lovers and That Terrible Thing (Contraluz, November 2022). "There were years when I was sober during that time. Season nine was the year I was sober all the time," he recounted in it. That was the first time he was nominated for an Emmy. In recent seasons, he weighed 58 kilograms, and took 55 pills of Vicodin, a painkiller derived from a synthetic opioid, every day. "I didn't know how to stop. I couldn't stop because the disease and addiction are progressive. So it got worse as I got older."

The actor also recounted in his memoirs that he went through rehabilitation programs on several occasions. In fact, he said he had spent "nine million dollars or so" on rehabilitation. At times, all this had made him feel ridiculed, singled out and stigmatized. "My case suggests that there's still a huge stigma around addiction, and that we still have to hide," he said in an interview with The New York Times.

From left to right, the stars of 'Friends': Jennifer Aniston, David Schummer, Courteney Cox, Matt Leblanc, Lisa Kudrow and Matthew Perry.

In that book he also said that in 2018 his colon exploded and that he spent two weeks in a coma and five months in the hospital, in addition to having to live glued to a colostomy bag for nine months. He had a 2% chance of survival. "I was put on a thing called an ECMO machine, which makes your heart and lungs work," the actor wrote. "It was a desperate remedy. No one survives that."

In the mid-53s, Perry dated Julia Roberts. They met in a cameo of her in the series, in the double episode of Thanksgiving of the second season, in which she played an old schoolmate and precisely a new romance of Chandler, and which then became the most watched of the same with 1995 million viewers. The chemistry went further and they dated between 1996 and 2019. He also had short romances with Neve Campbell (from the Scream saga), Lauren Graham (Gilmore Girls) and Lizzy Caplan (Masters of Sex) In 27, Perry began a relationship with 2021-year-old literary agent Molly Hurwitz, and they were about to get married. They called off the engagement in <>.