Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry starred in Friends together for 10 years (Picture: Ron Davis/Getty Images)
Jennifer Aniston has asked fans to help support cause close to Matthew Perry’s heart after his death.
The Friends actor died aged 54 on October 28 after an apparent drowning at his LA home, and the world has poured out their sympathies since.
Best known for playing Chandler Bing in Friends, his co-stars – Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow and David Schwimmer – have expressed their grief following his death.
Jennifer, 54, took to social media with a lengthy tribute and said they all loved Perry ‘deeply’ and confessed he was a ‘part of [their] DNA’ as a gang of six.
Heartbreakingly, she shared a screenshot of an old text from Perry alongside a sweet photo of them laughing together, which wrote: ‘Making you laugh just made my day. It made my day.’
Now, Jennifer is calling for her 45million followers to support his foundation, set up to realise Matthew’s ‘enduring commitment to helping others struggling with the disease of addiction’.
Matthew Perry as Chandler Bing, Jennifer Aniston as Rachel Green, David Schwimmer as Ross Geller, Courteney Cox as Monica Geller, Matt Le Blanc as Joey Tribbiani, and Lisa Kudrow as Phoebe Buffay have gone down in sitcom history with their hit show (Picture: NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images)
Jennifer posted a plea for people to give to the Matthew Perry Foundation (Picture: Jennifer Aniston/Instagram)
‘It will honor his legacy and be guided by his own words and experiences and driven by his passion for making a difference in as many lives as possible,’ the website continued.
Throughout his life in the spotlight, Perry was open about his own addiction.
As reflected in a quote on the website’s homepage, Perry once said: ‘When I die, I don’t want ‘Friends’ to be the first thing that’s mentioned – I want helping others to be the first thing that’s mentioned. And I’m going to live the rest of my life proving that.
‘Addiction is far too powerful for anyone to defeat alone. But together, one day at a time, we can beat it down.’
‘For #GivingTuesday please join me and Matty’s family in supporting his foundation – which is working to help those suffering with addiction,’ wrote Jennifer in her online plea.
‘He would have been grateful for the love.’
Alongside her words, the Morning Show star shared a post from the foundation page, which showed a part of the aforementioned quote from the late star.
Perry was found dead in his LA home in an apparent drowning in October (Picture: David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images)
Jennifer recently posted a heartfelt tribute for Perry, in which she confessed her and the whole Friends cast loved him dearly (Picture: David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images)
Behind the scenes of the popular US sitcom, Perry was struggling with alcohol and painkiller addiction.
In his memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, Perry spoke candidly about his time on the series, discussing being driven to rehab after filming Chandler’s wedding day.
While promoting his book last year, Perry told Good Morning America he hoped his story could help people.
‘A lot of people have alcoholism and don’t know that they do,’ he said. ‘They’re wondering why they drink so much. I was that way, early on. I didn’t know. I had to keep it a secret because I didn’t understand what was going on.
‘I thought I was alone in this. My thinking was very weird and I thought I was alone. Then I read a passage in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous that said drinkers think they’re trying to escape but really what they’re trying to do is get over an illness that they don’t know they have.
‘I read that and went, “Oh, there’s 30million people that think like me”.’
‘It’s really exciting that people will read this story and it’ll help a lot of people,’ he added.
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Expressing her grief in the wake of Perry’s death, Jennifer took to Instagram with a lengthy statement, which read in full: ‘Oh boy this one has cut deep… 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 poring 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. (See the second slide…)
‘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…’
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Perry died on October 28..