Friends star Matthew Perry has died at the age 54.
TMZ first published the reports, and alleged the actor was found Saturday October 27 by law enforcement officials who believe he drowned. First-responders rushed over on a call for cardiac arrest for a man who was found in a jacuzzi at the home.
Matthew is most well known for his role as Chandler Bing in the comedy Friends which ran for 10 years between 1992 and 2002 but off-screen he battled with devastating addictions to alcohol and drugs.
Born August 19, 1969 in Plymouth, Massachusetts, Matthew was raised by his mother in Ottawa, Ontario, and was educated at both the Rockcliffe Park Public School, alongside Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and at Ashbury College.
At the age of 15, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting,an made several appearances on various TV shows until he got his big break at the age of 23 for a new NBC comedy called Friends.
Also starring Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, and David Schwimmer, the show was a huge success and by its tenth season they were each making $1million per episode.
However during his many years as Chandler Bing on the hit show, he was on and off the wagon with his addiction to alcohol, and the actor revealed that at one point he was down to 128 pounds and taking 55 Vicodin a day.
“I didn’t know how to stop,” he said. “If the police came over to my house and said, ‘If you drink tonight, we’re going to take you to jail,’ I’d start packing. I couldn’t stop because the disease and the addiction is progressive. So it gets worse and worse as you grow older.”
A year ago he released his memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, in which he revealed he had almost died at the age of 49 when his colon burst from opioid overuse, leaving him spending weeks fighting for his life. What followed was five months in hospital and nine with a colostomy bag.
Matthew admitted: “The doctors told my family that I had a 2 percent chance to live. I was put on a thing called an ECMO machine, which does all the breathing for your heart and your lungs. And that’s called a Hail Mary. No one survives that.”
More to come…
