Julia Roberts Reflects On Ex Matthew Perry’s Death

After Matthew Perry’s death on Oct. 28, many of his Friends guest stars shared tributes to the late actor. However, one guest had an especially close connection to Perry. As he revisited in his 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, Perry used to date Julia Roberts, who briefly played Chandler’s former classmate Susie on Friends.

On Dec. 3, over a month after Perry’s passing, Roberts reflected on her ex’s death in an interview with Entertainment Tonight. “The sudden passing of anybody so young is heartbreaking,” she said. “I think that, you know, it just helps all of us just appreciate what we have and to keep going in a positive way as best we can.”

The actor went on to recall her time as a guest on Friends, saying she had “all good thoughts and feelings” about her experience. “They were all so welcoming to me as just a kind of a one-off character and it was a really fun time,” she said.

Perry & Roberts’ Relationship

In his 2022 memoir, Perry traced his romance with Roberts, which began when she was just considering her guest role on Friends, and he wanted to make a good first impression. “I sent her three dozen red roses and the card read: ‘The only thing more exciting than the prospect of you doing the show is that I finally have an excuse to send you flowers,’” he wrote.

She responded to his gesture, and their relationship quickly grew —  via fax machine. “I was so excited that some nights I would find myself out at some party sharing a flirtatious exchange with an attractive woman and cut the conversation short so I could race home and see if a new fax had arrived,” he shared.

The Friends writers were even helping Perry write his best fax responses. “She was interested in him from afar because he's so charming,” staff writer Alexa Junge said in 2021. “She was giving him these questionnaires like, ‘Why should I go out with you?’ And everyone in the writers’ room helped him explain to her why. He could do pretty well without us, but there was no question we were on Team Matthew and trying to make it happen for him.”

By the time she filmed her Season 2 episode, the two were officially dating, with Roberts even confirming their relationship on The Late Show with David Letterman. But just two months later, Perry decided to break things off, attributing it to his own insecurities.

“I had been constantly certain that she was going to break up with me,” he wrote. “Instead of facing the inevitable agony of losing her, I broke up with the beautiful and brilliant Julia Roberts. She might have considered herself slumming it with a TV guy, and TV guy was now breaking up with her. I can’t begin to describe the look of confusion on her face.”