Television actor Matthew Perry, best known for his role on the popular 1990’s sitcom Friends, has died at the age of 54 of apparent drowning.
Los Angeles Fire Department spokesperson Brian Humphrey announced that said first responders went to a home in Pacific Palisades based on a 911 call at 4:07 p.m. about a “water emergency” of an unknown type where the “Friends” star was found dead on Saturday in a hot tub at his Los Angeles home.
Authorities responded shortly after 4 p.m. to his home, where he was discovered unresponsive. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing, did not cite a cause of death. There was no sign of foul play, the sources added. A representative for Perry did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment.
Los Angeles Police Department’s robbery-homicide detectives are investigating the death. The cause of death will be determined at a later date by the Los Angeles county coroner’s office.
Perry, the son of actor John Bennett Perry and Suzanne Marie Langford, onetime press secretary of Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, was born in 1969 and grew up between Montreal and Los Angeles after his parents separated when Perry was 1.
About a year ago Perry was on a press tour for the release of his memoir, “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir,” which added to revelations about his battle with addiction, including a near-death experience in 2019 after his colon burst as a result of his use of opioids.
But Perry had a difficult life after “Friends”. In his 2022 memoir “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing,” Perry recounted his lifelong struggle with addiction to alcohol and opioids, which led to multiple stints in rehab and a number of serious health issues, including a five-month hospitalization in 2018 following a colon rupture that left him, he wrote, with a two percent chance to live through the night. And it was fueled, he acknowledged during a “Friends” reunion special in 2021, by the pressure to land the joke in front of a live studio audience night after night.
“Nobody wanted to be famous more than me,” Perry told The Times in April, discussing “Big Terrible Thing” at the Festival of Books. “I was convinced it was the answer. I was 25, it was the second year of ‘Friends,’ and eight months into it, I realized the American dream is not making me happy, not filling the holes in my life. I couldn’t get enough attention. … Fame does not do what you think it’s going to do. It was all a trick.”
