Matthew Perry, the beloved actor known for his portrayal as Chandler Bing on the hit sitcom Friends, passed away on October 28, age 54. The Los Angeles Police Department is still investigating the cause of his death, and on Monday, they gave some updates. 

Perry struggled with both drug and alcohol addiction throughout his life, but in later years, he devoted his time to helping others. In fact, he didn’t want to be remembered for his acting or role on Friends in the first place but rather how he wanted to help people to a better life.

Throughout his life, Matthew Perry had several relationships but never married or had children. Now, after his death, the well-known celebrity Gwyneth Paltrow breaks her silence, revealing how she and Perry once had a secret romance. 

Matthew Perry became a worldwide phenomenon when he, alongside his co-stars Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, and David Schwimmer, appeared as the main characters in Friends for the first time.

His life was never going to be the same after the first episode aired, and Perry struggled with addiction for many years. Ultimately, his life tragically ended on October 28, after his assistant found him unconscious in his jacuzzi.

Matthew Perry – early life

So, how did Matthew Perry rise to fame in the first place? Born Matthew Langford Perry on August 19, 1969, in Williamstown, Massachusetts, his father split with his mother while Matthew was still an infant. However, they later remarried.

Speaking on his childhood, Matthew Perry recalled it as tough as he moved around a lot. His mother was residing in Canada, and his father had relocated to California. Therefore, he had to travel by himself plenty. Speaking with People in 2022, Perry recalled how he was put on a plane from Montreal to Los Angeles by himself when he was only five years old.

“I was terrified,” he said. “My feet didn’t even touch the floor. And then when I saw the lights of the city, I knew we were landing, that my dad was going to pick me up, and I’d have a parent again.”

While Matthew Perry’s father tried to fulfill his dream of becoming an actor in Los Angeles, his mother lived a stressful life in Canada. In his memoir Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, he described himself as a “latchkey kid.”

Suzanne was a press secretary for Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau – the father of now-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (whom Matthew went to school with) – and it was very intense. Therefore, she was often distracted and stressed out, and Matthew realized he could try and make her laugh to get her attention.

“Mom and I were both abandoned, in fact, before we’d even gotten the chance to know each other,” Matthew Perry wrote in Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing.

“I learned to be funny (pratfalls, quick one-liners, you know the drill) because I had to be,” he continued. “And me being funny tended to calm her down enough that she would cook some food, sit down at the dinner table with me, and hear me out, after I heard her out, of course.”