Hank Azaria has paid homage to his friend and “brother,” Matthew Perry, with a tribute posted to Instagram honoring the beloved Friends star who died this past weekend.
“Matthew was the first friend I made in Los Angeles,” Azaria explained in the somber-toned video. “When I moved there, I was 21; he was 16. We did a pilot together called Morning Maggie, that never saw the light of day, but Matthew and I became really good friends. We were really more like brothers for a long time.”
Continuing, Azaria explained that Perry “lived to laugh,” and the two spent a good amount of time joking around. “In person, he was just the funniest man ever,” Azaria said. “He was like a genius, he would start to weave comedy threads together, just hanging out. There’d be a joke here, a joke there, and by the end of the night, he’d weave them all together in this, like, crescendo of hilarity. Most nights you spent with Matthew, you were crying laughing by the end.”
But as time went on, the partying days of their youth gave way to unhealthy habits. Thankfully for Azaria, Perry was there. “The night I went into AA, Matthew brought me in,” he said. “The whole first year I was sober, we went to meetings together… I got to tell him this, as a sober person, he was so caring and giving and wise, and he totally helped me get sober. And, I really wish he could’ve found it in himself to stay with the sober life more consistently.”
Perry was no stranger to being open about his struggles with addiction, which he detailed fairly extensively in his 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing. To Azaria, though, it was “painful” to read those confessions. “I had to pick up and put down that autobiography, like, 11 times,” he said. “As his friend who loved him… I knew he must be suffering, but the details of it were just devastating. Just devastating, physically, emotionally, mentally, psychologically.”
To that end, Azaria explained: “A lot of us who were close to him felt like we lost him to drugs and alcohol a long time ago because — as he documented in his autobiography — there was so much suffering.”
Now, though, with the news of Perry’s passing sinking in, that loss feels even more difficult. “It’s heartbreaking, for those of us who loved him and knew him really well, personally,” Azaria said. “We just missed him, we just missed him. It’s one of the terrible things about this disease: it just takes away the person you love.”
Closing out his remarks, Azaria mourned one more thing: all of the future work and performances Perry would’ve brought into the world. “Professionally, as an actor, he was so brilliant,” he said. “I just wish we – the world — could have gotten what the rest of his career would’ve been.” Watch the full video of Azaria’s remarks below.
News of Perry’s death broke this past weekend after the actor, 54-years-old, was found unresponsive in his hot tub by law enforcement. No official cause of death has been announced at this time. Perry’s final television credit was for appearing in the 2021 special, Friends: The Reunion.
Update: In a joint statement, Perry’s Friends co-stars said they were “utterly devastated” by Perry’s death.
