Julia Roberts breaks her silence on ex Matthew Perry’s ‘heartbreaking’ death

Julia Roberts has opened up about the death of her ex-boyfriend Matthew Perry, and what his loss means to her.

Julia Roberts has broken her silence on the death of her ex-boyfriend, Matthew Perry.

The late Friends star died of an apparent drowning in his hot tub on October 28. He was 54.

“The sudden passing of anybody so young is heartbreaking,” Roberts told Entertainment Tonight.

“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.”

Roberts, 56, and Perry became friendly in the early 1990s, shortly before the Pretty Woman star accepted a guest role on the second season of Friends.

“They were all so welcoming to me as just a kind of a one-off character, and it was a really fun time,” she told ET of the Friends cast. “All good thoughts and feelings.”

Roberts was promoting her new film, Leave the World Behind, which actually references Friends.

Julia Roberts attends the "Leave The World Behind" special screening at The Curzon Mayfair on November 29, 2023 in London. Picture: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images

In Perry’s 2022 memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, he revealed that Roberts only agreed to star in the hit sitcom if her character would somehow fit into Chandler Bing’s story arc.

At the request of the show’s producer Marta Kauffman, Perry further encouraged Roberts to appear on the show by sending her roses and a personal card.

“Thus began a three-month-long courtship by daily faxes,” Perry wrote in his memoir. “This was pre-internet, pre-cell phones – all our exchanges were done by fax. And there were many; hundreds.”

“Three or four times a day I would sit by my fax machine and watch the piece of paper slowly revealing her next missive,” Perry added.

He became “captivated” by what the Steel Magnolias star wrote.

“The way she strung sentences together, the way she saw the world, the way she articulated her unique thoughts, all was so captivating,” Perry recalled of the future Oscar winner.

Matthew Perry in 1996. Picture: Getty Images

Julia Roberts in 1996. Picture: Supplied

The faxes between the two actors “veered romantic” before morphing into “five-hour” phone calls. Then, one day, Roberts showed up on Perry’s doorstep.

“When I opened it, there she was, there was a smiling Julia Roberts on the other side. I believe I said something like, ‘Oh, that’s Julia Roberts,’ ” Perry recalled.

By the time they filmed her episode of Friends, they were already a couple. On a February 1996 appearance from Roberts on The Late Show With David Letterman she confirmed their romance.

But just two months later the couple split as a result of the actor’s drug and alcohol addiction making him feel like he was “not enough” for the actress.

“Dating Julia Roberts had been too much for me,” Perry wrote in his memoir. “I had been constantly certain that she was going to break up with me. Why would she not?”

“I was not enough; I could never be enough; I was broken, bent, unlovable. So instead of facing the inevitable agony of losing her, I broke up with the beautiful and brilliant Julia Roberts.”

(L-R) David Schwimmer, Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Perry, Courteney Cox Arquette, Jennifer Aniston, and Matt Leblanc. Julia Roberts said they were “welcoming.” Picture: AFP

Following his romance with Roberts, Perry went on to date Lizzy Caplan for six years, and was briefly engaged to literary manager Molly Hurwitz from 2020 to 2021.

Perry was found submerged in a hot tub at his Los Angeles home just after 4pm on October 28.

According to law enforcement officers at the scene, the actor was unresponsive and was declared deceased at his home.

The LA County Medical Examiner’s Office labelled Perry’s manner and cause of death as “deferred” pending additional tests that are likely to take months to complete.

Originally published as Julia Roberts breaks her silence on ex Matthew Perry’s ‘heartbreaking’ death