
Matthew Perry died at the age of 54 on Saturday, October 28, which happened to be his ex-girlfriend Julia Roberts' birthday. The actress, who turned 56 yesterday, and Perry were a couple in the mid-1990s.
Perry wrote in his 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, how the actress would star on Friends, but only if she was part of a storyline with Chandler Bing.
The former couple began dating in the mid-1990s while filming Friends, according to his memoirs.
Perry sent Roberts three dozen roses and a letter to further encourage her on the NBC hit comedy — at the request of creator Marta Kauffman.
" Thus began a three-month flirtation by letters between them, since this was the period before the Internet, before mobile phones - all our exchanges were by fax and letters. And there were many, hundreds ," Perry writes in his book. "Three or four times a day I would sit by the fax machine and wait for her next letter to slowly arrive ." Faxed letters that "became romantic" then turned into phone calls that lasted 5 hours. Then Julia appeared at his door.
" When I opened it, there it was, a smiling Julia Roberts on the other side. I think I said something like, 'Oh, Julia Roberts,' " he recalls. Roberts would then appear on Friends while they were already a couple. They spent New Year's 2006 together at the actor's family home in New Mexico before the two split two months later.
Matthew Perry died on Julia Roberts' birthday
" Meeting Julia Roberts was a lot for me. I was constantly sure that she would break up with me. Why not? ' wrote Perry in his memoirs.
" I wasn't enough - I could never be enough - I was crooked, unlovable. So instead of dealing with the inevitable agony of losing her, I broke up with the beautiful and brilliant Julia Roberts ."