Actor Matthew Perry and actress Julia Roberts hug each other on the set of Friends. Photo / Liaison
Actor Matthew Perry and actress Julia Roberts hug each other on the set of Friends. Photo / Liaison
Julia Roberts has broken her silence in the wake of her ex-boyfriend Matthew Perry’s death.
The late Friends actor passed away after an apparent drowning on October 28 at the age of 54.
“The sudden passing of anybody so young is heartbreaking,” she told Entertainment Tonight. “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.”
Perry and the Pretty Womanstar got close in the early 1990s shortly before Roberts appeared as a guest on the series’ second season.
When talking about the Friends cast, she said: “They were all so welcoming to me as just a kind of a one-off character and it was a really fun time.”
Julia Roberts agreed to be in the hit series only if her character was part of Chandler Bing's story arc. Photo / AP
In Perry’s 2022 memoir Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Things, he wrote that Roberts only agreed to appear on the hit comedy show if her character was somehow a part of Chandler Bing’s story arc.
At the request of the show’s producer Marta Kauffman, Perry encouraged Roberts to star in the series by sending her a bouquet of roses and a personal card.
“Thus began a three-month-long courtship by daily faxes,” Perry wrote. “This was pre-internet, pre-cell phones – all our exchanges were done by fax. And there were many; hundreds.
“Three or four times a day I would sit by my fax machine and watch the piece of paper slowly revealing her next missive,” Perry revealed.
According to Perry, he became “captivated” by what Roberts wrote. “The way she strung sentences together, the way she saw the world, the way she articulated her unique thoughts, all was so captivating,” Perry recounted.
Matthew Perry sent Julia Roberts hundreds of faxes. Photo / Getty Images
Then, Perry revealed that the faxes between the two stars “veered romantic” before transforming into “five-hour” phone calls. The actress then showed up on his doorstep one day.
“When I opened it, there she was, there was a smiling Julia Roberts on the other side. I believe I said something like, ‘Oh, that’s Julia Roberts,’” Perry recalled.
“Dating Julia Roberts had been too much for me,” Perry revealed in his memoir. “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. So instead of facing the inevitable agony of losing her, I broke up with the beautiful and brilliant Julia Roberts.”
Perry was found unresponsive in a spa pool at his Los Angeles home just after 4pm in late October, reports The Post.
According to officers at the scene, the actor was declared dead at the scene. The LA County Medical Examiner’s Office labelled Perry’s manner and cause of death as “deferred” pending additional tests that are predicted to take months to complete.
Following his relationship with Roberts, Perry went on to date Mean Girls actress Lizzy Caplan for six years, and was engaged for a short time to literary manager Molly Hurwitz from 2020 to 2021.
