Matthew Perry Laid to Rest at Private Funeral: Report
Saying goodbye to their friend.
Matthew Perry was laid to rest at a private funeral on Friday, November, 3, according to multiple outlets. The service was reportedly held at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Los Angeles’ Hollywood Hills neighborhood, near the Warner Bros. Studios lot where Friends was filmed.
Perry’s former castmates Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer were reportedly in attendance, per TMZ, along with Perry’s mother, Suzanne Morrison, his father, John Bennett Perry, and his stepfather, Keith Morrison.
The funeral comes nearly one week after Matthew’s sudden death at the age of 54 on Saturday, October 28. The actor was found “unconscious in a stand-alone jacuzzi” by law enforcement officials in his Pacific Palisades home, with a statement from the Los Angeles Fire Department on Monday, October 30, confirming that he had been “deceased prior to the first responder arrival.” His official cause of death has yet to be confirmed pending a toxicology report.
It was announced earlier on Friday that Matthew’s legacy will live on through the Matthew Perry Foundation, which will help those “struggling with the disease of addiction.” The charity is already up and running and is accepting donations, and will be “guided by his own words and experiences and driven by his passion for making a difference in as many lives as possible.”
Thoughout his life, Matthew didn’t shy away from discussing his own addiction issues, which he detailed in his 2022 memoir, Friends Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing. However, Matthew — who portrayed the witty Chandler Bing on Friends for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004 — was vocal about wanting to be remembered for more than his role on the hit sitcom.
“When I die, as far as my so-called accomplishments go, it would be nice if Friends were listed far behind the things I did to try to help other people,” he said on a November 2022 episode of the “Q with Tom Power” podcast. “I know it won’t happen, but it would be nice.”
He continued: “The best thing about me, bar none, is that if an alcoholic or drug addict comes up to me and says, ‘Will you help me?’ I can say yes and follow up and do it. When I die, I don’t want Friends to be the first thing that’s mentioned. I want that to be the first thing that’s mentioned, and I’m going to live the rest of my life proving that.”
Perry may not have wished for Friends to be his sole legacy, but it certainly was a large part of life — especially in the bond he made with costars. The cast paid tribute to their longtime friend on Monday.
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“We are all so utterly devastated by the loss of Matthew. We were more than just cast mates. We are a family,” Aniston, 54, Cox, 59, Kudrow, 60, LeBlanc, 56, and Schwimmer, 57, told Us Weekly in a joint statement on Monday. “There is so much to say, but right now we’re going to take a moment to grieve and process this unfathomable loss.”
Earlier this week, Jim Burrows, who directed 15 episodes of Friends, shared that the women in the cast were taking Perry’s death particularly hard. “I had texted the girls the day we found out,” he shared on the Thursday, November 2, episode of the Today show. “They were destroyed. It’s a brother dying.”
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