The Friends family‘s outpouring of tributes for Matthew Perry continued as Jennifer Aniston remembered her late friend and cast mate in a moving social media post.
“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. 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,” Aniston wrote. “He was such a part of our DNA. We were always the 6 of us. This was a chosen family that forever changed the course of who we were and what our path was going to be.”
She continued: “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…).”
In the photo, a screenshot of a text conversation with Perry showed the actor sending Aniston an old black and white photo of themselves together with the message: “Making you laugh just made my day.”
Aniston concluded her tribute with a message to Perry directly. “Matty, I love you so much and I know you are now completely at peace and out of any pain,” she shared. “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…”
On Oct. 28, Perry died of an apparent drowning at his Los Angeles home. He was 54 years old. (An investigation into his exact cause of death is still ongoing.) When the actor was first cast on Friends, he was the youngest among the group at just 24 years of age. The core cast of Perry, Aniston, Matt LeBlanc, Courteney Cox, David Schwimmer, and Lisa Kudrow spent 10 seasons together between 1994 and 2004.
Following Perry’s death, the cast shared a joint statement about the actor, writing: “We are all so utterly devastated by the loss of Matthew. We were more than just cast mates. We are a family. There is so much to say, but right now we’re going to take a moment to grieve and process this unfathomable loss.”
LeBlanc was the first to share an individual statement, posting a tribute to Instagram just over three weeks after the news broke. “Matthew, it is with a heavy heart I say goodbye. The times we had together are honestly among the favorite times of my life,” he wrote. “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.”
Cox’s tribute followed shortly after. Posting a pivotal scene that marked the beginning of the true love story for their characters Monica and Chandler, the actress wrote: “I am so grateful for every moment I had with you Matty and I miss you every day. 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 favorites.”
