Matthew Perry, the beloved star of the 1990s U.S. television sitcom “Friends,” died at the age of 54 after apparently drowning in a hot tub. The American-Canadian performer was found dead in a Jacuzzi at his Los Angeles home. NBC confirmed his demise in a statement on social media platform X. The news brought an outpouring of grief from fellow celebrities and other high-profile personalities.
Perry was best known for his longtime role as Chandler in the internationally successful “Friends,” which ran for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004. The series made international celebrities out of all six castmates, Who played a close-knit group of young adults who spent time at each other’s apartments and at “Central Perk,” a fictional Manhattan café. One of the major story lines involved a clandestine romance between Chandler and Monica Geller, the character played by Cox, which the four other friends discovered one by one. The pair eventually married. The show was the most watched U.S. television program in prime time, with each actor earning $1 million per episode at the height of its popularity.