Lauren Graham is opening up about the “terrible loss” of her friend Matthew Perry nearly six months after his death.
Graham, 57, spoke candidly about her connection with Perry during a recent book event at the Lincoln Theater in Washington, D.C. “It’s still really hard to believe,” she told the audience of Perry’s death.
Graham called Perry “a friend and a constant,” noting that “he was not technically ever a boyfriend” but was “an almost in my life.”
She went on to describe the nature of the pair’s friendship, revealing that they reconnected again in the months before his death. “We would stretch for a year, then he would come back in my life, and he had just come back in my life last year,” she said.
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Perry even gave the Gilmore Girls alum a heartfelt gift for her birthday last March: a pickleball set. “He’s like really into tennis and pickleball, with a card that said, ‘Be older,’” she recalled.
Perry died in October 2023 at the age of 54. He was found unresponsive in a hot tub at his home. Two months later, a toxicology report from the Los Angeles County Medical revealed his death was caused by “the acute effects of ketamine.” His death was ruled an accident, with drowning, coronary artery disease and the effects of buprenorphine, which is used to treat opioid use, also listed as contributing factors.
The Friends alum was previously candid about receiving ketamine treatments, writing in his 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, that the method was used to “ease pain and help with depression.”
“It was something different, and anything different is good,” Perry wrote. “Taking K is like being hit in the head with a giant happy shovel. But the hangover was rough and outweighed the shovel.”
Perry would “continually sign up” for the treatments, but he ultimately decided ketamine “was not for” him.
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Throughout Perry’s career — particularly at the height of his Friends fame — he struggled with substance abuse. He was forthcoming about his ups and downs, revealing in his memoir that he was “completely sober” for only one season of the beloved sitcom.
During her Have I Told You This Already? book tour, Graham emphasized that Perry was proud of the impact made by his memoir. “The solace I take from having seen him at the time I saw him was he was so thrilled with how his book was received — and not just because it was a huge success, but because his life’s work kind of became, ‘How can I give back? How can I talk about the struggles I had and hopefully help someone else?’” she said.
Graham previously mourned the loss of her friend, with whom she starred in the 2008 film Birds of America, in a November 2023 appearance on CBS Mornings.
“No one made me laugh as hard. Just tears, streaming. There was just such joy in being around him and being his friend,” she said at the time, saying that fans can feel “thankful” that Perry left “his beautiful work behind.”
