Jennifer Aniston has shared her first personal post since the death of Matthew Perry. In an Instagram post, Aniston shared some fond memories of Perry and an inner look of their relationship, which had lasted for decades and she considered formative to her life and career.
The post is made up of a photo, a screenshot of a text message, and a video of the two acting together, remininding the world of their chemistry and the magic that existed on the set of “Friends.” “Oh boy this one has cut deep,” she began the post. “Having to say goodbye to our Matty has been an insane wave of emotions that I’ve never experienced before. We all experience loss at some point in our lives. Loss of life or loss of love. Being able to really SIT in this grief allows you to feel the moments of joy and gratitude for having loved someone that deep. And we loved him deeply.”
“He was such a part of our DNA. We were always the 6 of us. This was a chosen family that forever changed the course of who we were and what our path was going to be. For Matty, he KNEW he loved to make people laugh. As he said himself, if he didn’t hear the ‘laugh’ he thought he was going to die. His life literally depended on it. And boy did he succeed in doing just that. He made all of us laugh. And laugh hard. In the last couple weeks, I’ve been pouring over our texts to one another. Laughing and crying then laughing again. I’ll keep them forever and ever. I found one text that he sent me out of nowhere one day. It says it all,” she wrote. The text message shows a photo of Aniston laughing at something that Perry was saying, and a text from Perry himself that read, “Making you laugh just made my day. It made my day.”
Aniston wrapped up the post by sharing a personal message for Perry. “Matty, I love you so much and I know you are now completely at peace and out of any pain. I talk to you every day… sometimes I can almost hear you saying “could you BE any crazier?” Rest little brother. You always made my day.”
The cast of “Friends”
The cast of “Friends” met in the ‘90s, after being selected to star in the show, which was expected to be one of the biggest hits of the year. The series overdelivered, becoming a cultural moment that extended to 10 seasons and remains one of the most viewed programs to this day. They were all grateful for their friendship, and revealed that even though they didn’t see each other as much as they could, they remained incredibly important people in each other’s lives.
"The best way that I can describe it is after the show was over, at a party or any kind of social gathering, if one of us bumped into each other, that was it," said Perry in the “Friends” reunion special. "That was the end of the night. You just sat with the person all night long and that was it."