Matthew Perry: Julia Roberts reflects on Friends role and ‘heartbreaking’ death of ‘anybody so young’

Julia Roberts has reflected on Friends star Matthew Perry after he died in October aged 54. 

Roberts, who was briefly in a relationship with Perry, said in an interview with Entertainment Tonight that she had “all good thoughts and feelings” towards him and the show.

Speaking about her experience appearing on the sitcom in 1996, Roberts said: “They were all so welcoming to me as just a kind of a one-off character and it was a really fun time.”

“The sudden passing of anybody so young is heartbreaking. I think that, you know, it just helps all of us just appreciate what we have and to keep going in a positive way as best we can,” the 56-year-old added.

Perry said in his 2022 memoir that the pair had a “three-month-long courtship” around the time of filming the episode titled The One After The Superbowl.

He wrote of their relationship: “Three or four times a day I would sit by my fax machine and watch the piece of paper slowly revealing her next missive.

“I was so excited that some nights I would find myself out at some party sharing a flirtatious exchange with an attractive woman and cut the conversation short so I could race home and see if a new fax had arrived.

“It was like she was placed on this planet to make the world smile, and now, in particular, me. I was grinning like some 15-year-old on his first date.”

But Perry broke up with Roberts, known for roles in films like Pretty Woman and Notting Hill, shortly afterwards.

In his memoir, Perry said the relationship “had been too much for me”.

“I had been constantly certain that she was going to break up with me. Why would she not? I was not enough; I could never be enough; I was broken, bent, unlovable,” he wrote.

“Instead of facing the inevitable agony of losing her, I broke up with the beautiful and brilliant Julia Roberts.

“She might have considered herself slumming it with a TV guy, and TV guy was now breaking up with her.

“I can’t begin to describe the look of confusion on her face.”

Read more:
What Perry’s memoir revealed
Obituary: The one who made everyone laugh
Perry’s life in pictures

Perry died on 28 October after an apparent drowning at his Los Angeles home.

He was best known for playing wise-cracking Chandler Bing in Friends between 1994 and 2004.

Tributes poured in for Perry in the days after his death, including from his co-stars.

Friends actors Matt LeBlanc, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, David Schwimmer and Lisa Kudrow, were also among the 20 mourners at Perry’s funeral in the Hollywood Hills in November.

Perry was open about his battle with substance abuse and addiction, and set up a sober living facility for men with similar issues.

A foundation has now been set up to help others struggling with the disease.