Jennifer Aniston Writes Heartfelt Tribute to 'Little Brother' Matthew Perry
Jennifer Aniston has finally broken her silence on the death of her close friend and colleague of decades, Matthew Perry, who passed away unexpectedly last month. The 54-year-old posted a tribute just one day after her fellow Friends costars Courteney Cox and Matt LeBlanc did the same.
"Oh boy this one has cut deep," the Morning Show star shared on Instagram Wednesday morning. "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. He was such a part of our DNA. We were always the six of us," Aniston recalled. "This was a chosen family that forever changed the course of who we were and what our path was going to be."
She continued, noting that Perry 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," she explained. "His life literally depended on it. And boy did he succeed in doing just that. He made all of us laugh. And laugh hard."
Aniston said that over the past couple weeks, she had been pouring over text messages that she and Perry had sent one another, "laughing and crying then laughing again." In the accompanying post, she shared one particularly gut-wrenching message between the two, as well as an emotional scene from the Friends series penultimate episode, "The One with Rachel's Going Away Party."
In the scene, Rachel and Chandler say their goodbyes to one another as she prepares to leave for a job in Paris.
"Matty, I love you so much and I know you are now completely at peace and out of any pain," she added. "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."
David Schwimmer likewise posted his own tribute to Perry on Wednesday morning, thanking his friend for "10 incredible years of laughter and creativity" while filming the massively popular NBC sitcom.
"I will never forget your impeccable comic timing and delivery," Schwimmer wrote. "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," the 57-year-old continued, sharing an image from the Friends season 5 episode, "The One with all the Thanksgivings," of the pair wearing '80s suits in a flashback scene. "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," he added, before echoing Aniston: "Could there BE any more clouds?"
Later Wednesday afternoon, Lisa Kudrow, the fifth remaining Friends cast member who had yet to individually speak on behalf of Perry, added her own heartfelt personal statement.
"Shot the pilot, 'Friends Like Us,' got picked up then immediately, we were at the NBC Upfronts," Kudrow wrote on Instagram. "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," she continued. "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."
