Matthew Perry Has Died at Age 54: Report

Actor Matthew Perry has died, according to a report from TMZ. The outlet reported the Friends star died from an apparent drowning at a home in the Los Angeles area. First responders reportedly answered a call for cardiac arrest. The actor was 54 years old.

Perry, who became a household name in the 1990s thanks to his role as Chandler Bing on NBC's Friends, published a memoir last year, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir, which chronicled his battle with addiction and his subsequent sobriety. Perry continued to act after his sitcom fame, appearing in films like 17 Again alongside Zac Efron, the rom-com Fools Rush In, and The Whole Nine Yards. Perry was also making guest appearances on other TV series, including The Good Wife and its spin-off, The Good Fight. Perry also starred in the short-lived sitcoms Mr. Sunshine and Go On.

In 2020, Perry and literary manager Molly Hurwitz announced that they were engaged though they told People in June 2021 that they'd called off their engagement, with Perry saying, "Sometimes things just don't work out and this is one of them. I wish Molly the best."

Perry also suffered from other health issues, which he detailed in his memoir. He told The Hollywood Reporter that while he was being treated for opioid addiction, he was given a “2% chance” of survival. Perry developed a gastrointestinal perforation — a hole in the wall of his intestine, esophagus, or stomach — and his colon burst at one point. 

“The doctors told my family that I had a 2 percent chance to live,” he said. “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. There were five people put on an ECMO machine that night and the other four died and I survived. So the big question is why? Why was I the one? There has to be some kind of reason."

Back in 2021, Perry was part of HBO's Friends Reunion Special, which officially brought the beloved cast (Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc, and Lisa Kudrow) back together on screen for the first time in 17 years "Reuniting this cast again — I knew it was gonna be a really seriously emotional experience," Perry toldGood Morning America of filming the reunion back in 2021. "And it has been."