What Matthew Perry said about his 5 Friends in his memoirs

It almost seemed like he knew he didn't have much time left. Matthew Perry released his memoirs just a year before his death.

Strikingly, his book - published while he was still very much alive - begins as follows: "Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty. And I should be dead."

"If you like," he continued, "you can consider what you're about to read to be a message from the beyond, my beyond." And this was written while the actor had apparently excellent health.

Why did the actor say he "should be dead"? Well, as he revealed in the book, Matthew Perry got very close to death because of his unhealthy habits. The actor opened up about his life of ups and downs, including his struggle with addictions.

Obviously, next to the dark memories stand the light ones. Let's take this occasion to focus on the happy times and important people in Matthew Perry's life and memoirs: his co-stars from 'Friends.'

Every one of the six protagonists has boasted of the bond of friendship and brotherhood they created during the 10 years of filming the series together.

"We were more than just cast mates. We are a family," said the joint statement released by David Schwimmer, Jennifer Aniston, Matt Leblanc, Courteney Cox, and Lisa Kudrow as they said goodbye to Matthew Perry in October 2023.

Before he passed away, Chandler Bing's alter ego had time to leave a thought about each of his five companions in the pages of his memoir.

It should be noted that only Lisa Kudrow appears in the acknowledgments of the biography, in addition to the creators of the series, David Crane and Marta Kauffman. While he adored all of his colleagues, he had an especially close bond with Lisa Kudrow.

For example, he presented David Schwimmer as the common union representative for the six protagonists of 'Friends.'

He thanked him in his memoirs "for making us stick together when he could have gone it alone and profited more than all the rest, and deciding we should be a team and getting us a million bucks a week."

In this case, Matthew Perry remembers how Ross's alter ego was the one who proposed that they join together and negotiate their salaries together. This way, they gained the power of unity that led them to receive a million dollars per episode in the last seasons.

As many had already suspected, Matthew Perry confirmed that he had been in love with Jennifer Aniston. They knew each other from before the series and his crush on the actress had started before 'Friends.'

In his memoir, Matthew Perry wrote that he was grateful "for letting me look at that face an extra two seconds every single day."

Interestingly, Matthew and Jennifer met three years before 'Friends' and he asked her out on several occasions. Yet, she always refused and said they could be friends. To which Matthew would respond: "We can't be friends!" Ironically, they could and they would. With a capital F.

Meanwhile, Matt LeBlanc, the unforgettable Joey, got a lot of praise for his work in Matthew Perry's book. He said LeBlanc "took the only sort of stock character and turned him into the funniest character of the show."

Then, Matthew Perry thanked Courteney Cox "for making America think that someone so beautiful would marry a guy like me." He refers to the couple they formed in the famous sitcom.

Finally, he defined Lisa Kudrow, the glorious Phoebe, by stating that "no woman has ever made me laugh as much."

It is clear that the 'Friends' bond of love was still intact by the time Matthew Perry wrote his memoirs. The six actors who started out as friends would become siblings over time. The pain of losing one of their brothers must be hard to endure.