CNN
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“Friends” co-creator Marta Kauffman has spoken out about the best way to remember the late actor Matthew Perry.
Kaufman said “two ways come to mind” for honoring Perry, who detailed his decades-long struggle with drug addiction in a 2022 memoir and died of a ketamine overdose last year: One is to donate to drug and treatment centers.
“Let’s fight this disease,” Kaufman told The Times of London in an interview on Friday.
The second way is to “watch Friends and remember him not as the guy who died like that, but as the guy who was so funny and brought so much joy to people,” Kaufman added.
Perry played the witty and lovable Chandler Bing on the NBC sitcom, which ran from 1994 to 2004 and also starred Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer and Matt LeBlanc.
Perry died in October 2023 at the age of 54.
He was found floating face down in the hot tub of his Pacific Palisades home. According to an autopsy report from the Los Angeles Coroner’s Office, Perry died from “acute effects of ketamine” and subsequent drowning.
Five people have been charged in connection with Perry’s death, the US Attorney’s Office announced at a news conference in Los Angeles on Thursday.
Investigators said they uncovered an underground network of drug dealers and suppliers allegedly involved in distributing ketamine and believe Perry “relapsed into drug addiction” last fall.
According to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the defendants include two doctors, Perry’s live-in assistant and a woman authorities have called the “Queen of Ketamine.”
“He was the one I had the most contact with,” Kaufman told The Times. “He and I spoke on FaceTime about two weeks before[his death]and he was a really good guy.”
Kaufman’s comments to The Times were part of a special feature celebrating the 30th anniversary of “Friends,” but it is unclear whether they were made before or after news of the indictment was made public last week.
CNN reached out to representatives of the “Friends” cast for comment on Thursday.
In November, Aniston remembered Perry in a tribute posted to her Instagram page, and, like Kaufman, praised how much Perry made people laugh.
“As he himself said, if he didn’t hear that ‘laugh,’ he thought he would die,” she wrote. “His life literally depended on it, and that’s exactly what he did.”
