RIP: Matthew Perry, aged 54!

[thewayne]

Bit of a surprise. He was found in his swimming pool, apparently an accidental drowning. I'm guessing that he suffered some form of medical emergency and the drowning was a consequence of that.

While best known for his role in the hugely successful TV series Friends, he did a lot of work outside of that. He also did a huge amount of drugs, which may have contributed to his rather early death. That's one of the risks and consequences of the Hollywood lifestyle: even if you're clean now, the fact that you were a hard user a couple of decades ago can have consequences.

RIP, dude. Lots of your fans will miss you.

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/matthew-perry-friends-star-dead-obit-1234865185/

Comments

[disneydream06]

It's sad to say, my first thought when I heard about this was, Was he using again? :(
Hugs, Jon

[thewayne]

While I don't know it, and we won't know anything until an autopsy and blood work gets back, I don't think so.  I think it was just his past catching up.  I was reading about him using over 50 vicodin a day and it causing almost fatal stomach and intestinal damage.  I would expect that would dramatically shorten your lifespan.

[disneydream06]

So sad. :(

[fairy69]

not surprising to me, sadly, but what sucks, always, is that this happens after all the years of trying to get help. If you remember the overdose of Scott Weiland from Stone Temple Pilots? And so many others. They try to get better but it's not just the "getting clean from drugs" approach that should be used but going to the root problem of what's up psychologically that is rarely addressed even in rehab.

[silveradept]

I had never gotten into Friends, and therefore I didn't know that he had also dealt with addiction and was doing his best to try and not be known as a one-hit wonder because of it. That's too bad that he didn't get the second act that we would have wanted for him, especially because of the earlier issues with drugs.

[thewayne]

There are many shows that I can watch and just not laugh at, and Friends was one of them.  It was completely not for me.  And I was completely gobsmacked when they did an episode that was entirely about someone trying to arrange a three-way.  This was prime time entertainment?  Frasier was another one that never did it for me.

[silveradept]

It didn't seem all that interesting in the snippets that I would catch here and there.

I suspect the people who like Frasier are the people who liked the character in Cheers and followed him to the other show.

[thewayne]

I liked Cheers in a 'I'm in a room with it airing and having nothing better to do' way, but not enough to follow it.  Frasier banked on snobbishness and contrast with his working-class father.  It just didn't do it for me.