It’s been a whole year since Matthew Perry, the actor best known for his role as Chandler Bing in the hit sitcom Friends, tragically passed away on October 28, 2023.
In honour of the one-year anniversary of his passing, Matthew’s former co-star Jennifer Aniston took to Instagram and posted several sweet pictures.
One was a candid behind-the-scenes snap of Jennifer and Matthew.
Another was a still from Friends where Matthew’s character Chandler is kissing Jennifer’s character Rachel on the forehead.
The actress simply captioned her post with, “1 year,” and tagged The Matthew Perry Foundation — a non-profit organisation founded in Matthew’s honour that helps people with addiction.
Over the past year, the entire Friends cast has spoken at length about how much they miss Matthew.
Tom Selleck, who had a recurring role throughout Friends as Dr. Richard Burke, told USA Today in January of this year:
“He walked onto the set, and that brought the house down.
“He was raw talent. Matthew’s gone, so it’s easy to say this, but it’s true. I think he was the most talented of a very talented group of people.”
In December 2023, in Jennifer’s first interview since Matthew’s death, she emotionally revealed how happy he was in his final days.
“He was happy. He was healthy. He had quit smoking. He was getting in shape. He was happy — that’s all I know,” Jennifer told Variety.
“I was literally texting with him that morning, funny Matty. He was not in pain. He wasn’t struggling. He was happy.”
Variety noted that while Jennifer spoke about Matthew, she was in tears and her Morning Wars co-star Reese Witherspoon held her hand throughout.
“I want people to know he was really healthy, and getting healthy. He was on a pursuit. He worked so hard. He really was dealt a tough one,” the actress continued before adding:
“I miss him dearly. We all do. Boy, he made us laugh really hard.”
The rest of the Friends cast — Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow and David Schwimmer — all individually shared touching tributes to honour their late colleague and friend exactly two weeks after his death.
Courteney, who played Monica Geller (a character who ended up marrying Matthew’s character Chandler), shared an outtake from the Friends scene where Monica and Chandler first get together.
She wrote alongside the video, “When you work with someone as closely as I did with Matthew, there are thousands of moments I wish I could share. For now, here’s one of my favourites.
“To give a little backstory, Chandler and Monica were supposed to have a one night fling in London. But because of the audience’s reaction, it became the beginning of their love story.
“In this scene, before we started rolling, he whispered a funny line for me to say. He often did things like that. He was funny and he was kind.”
Matt, who played Chandler’s best friend Joey Tribbiani, shared pictures of him and Matthew on the set of Friends.
“Matthew. It is with a heavy heart I say goodbye. The times we had together are honestly among the favourite times of my life,” he captioned his post.
“It was an honour to share the stage with you and to call you my friend. I will always smile when I think of you and I’ll never forget you. Never.
“Spread your wings and fly brother, you’re finally free. Much love. And I guess you’re keeping the 20 bucks you owe me.”
Lisa, who played Phoebe Buffay, wrote on Instagram, along with a throwback picture of her and Matthew, “Shot the pilot, Friends Like Us, got picked up then immediately, we were at the NBC Upfronts. Then… You suggested we play poker AND made it so much fun while we initially bonded. Thank you for that.
“Thank you for making me laugh so hard at something you said, that my muscles ached, and tears poured down my face EVERY DAY. Thank you for your open heart in a six way relationship that required compromise. And a lot of ‘talking.’
“Thank you for showing up at work when you weren’t well and then, being completely brilliant. Thank you for the best 10 years a person gets to have. Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for all I learned about GRACE and LOVE through knowing you.
“Thank you for the time I got to have with you, Matthew.”
David, AKA Ross Geller, wrote alongside a photo of one of his favourite Friends scenes, “Matty, thank you for ten incredible years of laughter and creativity.
“I will never forget your impeccable comic timing and delivery. You could take a straight line of dialogue and bend it to your will, resulting in something so entirely original and unexpectedly funny it still astonishes. And you had heart. Which you were generous with, and shared with us, so we could create a family out of six strangers,” he continued.
“This photo is from one of my favorite moments with you. Now it makes me smile and grieve at the same time.
“I imagine you up there, somewhere, in the same white suit, hands in your pockets, looking around —
“‘Could there BE any more clouds?'”
Jennifer also took to Instagram two weeks after Matthew’s death and penned a lovely message alongside an image of her and Matthew on set and a screenshot of a text thread between the two.
“Oh boy this one has cut deep… Having to say goodbye to our Matty has been an insane wave of emotions that I’ve never experienced before,” she began.
“We all experience loss at some point in our lives. Loss of life or loss of love. Being able to really SIT in this grief allows you to feel the moments of joy and gratitude for having loved someone that deep. And we loved him deeply. He was such a part of our DNA. We were always the six of us. This was a chosen family that forever changed the course of who we were and what our path was going to be. For Matty, he KNEW he loved to make people laugh. As he said himself, if he didn’t hear the ‘laugh’ he thought he was going to die.
“His life literally depended on it. And boy did he succeed in doing just that. He made all of us laugh. And laugh hard. In the last couple weeks, I’ve been pouring over our texts to one another. Laughing and crying then laughing again. I’ll keep them forever and ever. I found one text that he sent me out of nowhere one day. It says it all. (See the second slide…)
“Matty, I love you so much and I know you are now completely at peace and out of any pain. I talk to you every day… sometimes I can almost hear you saying ‘could you BE any crazier?’
“Rest little brother. You always made my day…”
Friends ran for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004 and was one of the most successful sitcoms of all time; even more so in the era of streaming, as younger generations have been able to binge the show and fall in love with it too.
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