Matthew Perry Family: Friends Star’s Life, Struggles & Passing

By Olivia Blake

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Matthew Perry

Actor Matthew Perry was born in the United States on August 19, 1969, and died on October 28, 2023. Massachusetts is where he was born. Matthew Langford Perry is his real name. He is 185 cm in height.

He was raised by American actor John Bennett Perry and a Canadian mother who worked as Pierre Trudeau’s assistant and reporter. He is a citizen of the United States and Canada. He was raised in Ontario, Canada after his parents separated before he turned a year old.

As a youngster, he was one of Canada’s best junior tennis players and dreamed of playing professionally, but he developed an interest in acting after moving to Los Angeles at the age of 15 to stay with his actor father.

Matthew Perry Actor

He first appeared on television in the 1987 series Second Chance. He became well-known for his portrayal as Chandler Bing, a key character in the 1994 TV drama Friends.

In November 2022, he will publish a memoir that will include details on how he got the Friends part and his battles with alcoholism and drug addiction, including Vicodin.

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Addiction to Drugs and Other Problems

He was 14 when he started drinking. After being hurt in a jet ski accident in 1997, he gave himself painkillers, which led to the start of his addiction to drugs. 

He overused drugs to the point where his intestines burst in 2018. He was placed on ECMO and remained in a coma for 2 weeks. At that point, doctors informed his family that his chances of life were only 2%. For the following months, he excreted in a bag and utilized an artificial anus. He had propofol throughout surgery in 2020, which caused his heart to cease beating for 5 minutes. Although he received CPR and recovered, he sustained severe injuries, such as 8 broken ribs. He is claimed to have spent less than $7 million to overcome his addiction, attended roughly 6,000 recovery groups, went to rehab 15 times, and stayed in a mental health facility.

For thirty years, he also went to therapy multiple times a week. Robert Downey Jr., who also battled drug addiction, stated, “Drug addiction is like getting a gun in your mouth and pressing down on the trigger.” He added he understood well the misery of addiction, which is hard to overcome. The metallic flavor is irresistible.

Matthew Perry Family

The actor’s parents were not together and parted ways from each other when he was just one year old. Later, his mother married again with a Canadian journalist Keith Morrison. The actor was raised and brought up by his mother mostly in Ontario. Perry had 4 younger siblings which are maternal half-siblings names are Emily, Madeline, Caitlin, and Will. Perry did not have any kids.

Death

On October 28, 2023, he died in his Los Angeles home’s jacuzzi. His age was 54. Before providing his assistant to carry out a task earlier that morning, Matthew had been playing pickleball for 2 hours, based on a TMZ report. Several hours later, when the assistant came back, Matthew was already unconscious. The cops were called, and Matthew was declared dead. He seemed to have died in his bathtub at home, according to law enforcement officers who spoke to the media.