The 30th anniversary of Friends Sunday, September 22, comes as fans and those who worked on the show continue to mourn star Matthew Perry, who died less than a year ago from the acute effects of the anesthetic ketamine. More recently, new information has emerged about Perry’s use of ketamine in his final days, as those who allegedly helped him obtain the drug have been arrested and charged.
And the creators of the hit NBC sitcom, Marta Kauffman and David Crane, as well as executive producer Kevin S. Bright, are aware of how much Perry's death has cast a shadow on what would otherwise have been a celebratory moment.
“It's a huge loss and it makes the 30th a little tense,” Kauffman said in an interview with Crane and Bright that aired Friday. Today show, as Bright added, “It made us laugh every day.”
Looking back on Perry's widely publicized struggles with addiction and how he seemed to be doing better in the years leading up to his death, Bright said. “He had been fighting the good fight for so long, and it really seemed like, from [2021 cast] reunion, which had finally found some peace.”
Shortly after Perry's death, those who knew and loved him said, Friends The star paid tribute to him, Kauffman said Today that he had spoken to Perry two weeks before he died and that the actor was “happy and cheerful. He didn't seem weighed down by anything. He was in a really good place, which is why this seems so unfair.”
“He looked better than I've seen him in a while,” she said at the time. “I was so excited to see him. He was in a good place emotionally. He looked good. He quit smoking. Yes, he was sober. He learned things through all of this, and what he learned more than anything is that he wants to help other addicts, and that gave him a purpose.”
Over the summer, however, five people were indicted and charged in an investigation into Perry's death that uncovered a “vast underground criminal network.”
In a separate interview tied to the anniversary, for the UK Timesbut conducted before the recent wave of arrests in connection with Perry's death, Kauffman and Crane spoke about Perry's struggles with addiction.
“By the time we realized that, we were already a family on many levels,” Crane said. “There was a point where we said to him, 'Do you want to stop [being in the show]?' And he was like, 'No, this is really important to me.'”
Kaufmann meanwhile, echoing what was said Today Last year, speaking to Perry via FaceTime “about two weeks before” his death, when Perry “looked really good,” he spoke about how he hoped fans would remember one of the show’s beloved stars.
“Two things come to mind [about how to celebrate him]: one of them is donating to drug treatment centers — we fight the disease,” he said. “And the second way is looking Friends and remember him not as a man who died that way, but as a man who was hilariously funny and brought joy to everyone.”