Matt LeBlanc (left) and Matthew Perry were good friends outside the show. Photo / Getty Images
It’s been a year since Matthew Perry was found dead in the hot tub of his Los Angeles home. As the grim anniversary arrives, Perry’s former co-stars are reportedly worried about another Friends star – Matt LeBlanc.
The 57-year-old actor has rarely been seen in public since Perry’s death on October 28 last year – and when he was recently photographed visiting a used-car showroom near LA, he looked almost unrecognisable from his days playing Joey Tribbiani.
A source speaking to US celebrity magazine In Touch Weekly claims the Friends cast are “concerned” about LeBlanc’s “dishevelled” and “exhausted” appearance, and that “he’s such a recluse these days and they barely hear from him from one month to the next”.
It’s unsurprising that LeBlanc is still grieving because he seems to be the Friends star who was closest to the friend he called “Matty”. They played roommates on the show, and LeBlanc and Perry were neighbours in real life, both living in Pacific Palisades, an upscale haven in west LA. LeBlanc was also the first Friends cast member to post an emotional tribute to social media after Perry’s death was announced.
He wrote on Instagram: “Matthew. It is with a heavy heart I say goodbye. The times we had together are honestly among the favourite times of my life. It was an honour to share the stage with you and to call you my friend. I will always smile when I think of you and I’ll never forget you. Never. Spread your wings and fly brother you’re finally free. Much love. And I guess you’re keeping the 20 bucks you owe me.”
An insider claims Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox have been taking care of LeBlanc. Jen has “been spending a lot of time with Matt at his home … cooking for him or just hanging out and watching movies, or sitting and chatting. She’s even stayed over a couple of times. And both she and Courteney have been in contact to ensure at least one of them is around to keep an eye on him.”
“Grief is such a personal journey and nobody can truly understand what someone is going through behind the scenes, and as a star this must be really hard,” says PR and image management consultant Natalie Trice. “There’s a real paradox at play here. While Matt LeBlanc, and all the cast, need privacy and space to process this huge loss, concerns about him are all over the press. We live in a world of 24/7 celebrity culture where constant scrutiny can make grief even harder to bear, and the pressure to stay visible and ‘on’ in the public eye is immense, especially when personal struggles are magnified for the world to see.”
After Perry’s death, it was reported the late 54-year-old actor was lonely and had longed for a wife and children. Much has been made of the unlucky love lives of most of the cast, in what’s been dubbed “the curse of Friends”.
Before he married model-turned-actor Melissa McKnight in 2003 and became a stepfather to her two children, Tyler and Jacqueline, LeBlanc was linked to Kate Hudson and Minnie Driver. LeBlanc and McKnight went on to welcome a daughter, Marina, in 2004, but sadly the couple split up in 2006. LeBlanc then had a six-year relationship with Northern Irish TV producer Aurora Mulligan, who he met on the set of Top Gear and who was 17 years his junior, but they parted ways in 2022. He appears to be single. He is thought to have a close relationship with his daughter, who is now 20, but he is reportedly estranged from his father, Paul, who split from LeBlanc’s mother, Patricia, and moved to Australia when LeBlanc was a young boy.
“I never hear from Matt and he’s only sent me one birthday card in my entire life,” he told reporters in 2021. “I’ve sent him text messages including one this year asking if we can get back in touch, but he has totally ignored me.” (A spokeswoman for LeBlanc said at the time in response: “To put this in perspective, Matt’s father abandoned Matt and his mother when he was an infant.”)
Before he moved to New York at 17 to try to become a model, LeBlanc, who grew up as an only child, was working as a carpenter in Massachusetts. When he auditioned for Friends he had just US$11. By the end, he was earning US$1 million an episode.
After achieving global fame and fortune with Friends, LeBlanc retreated from the spotlight after his spin-off show Joey was cancelled in 2006. He said: “I barely left the house. I wanted to not have a schedule, not be somewhere. I almost had a nervous breakdown.”
He was coaxed out of his hiatus by Friends co-creator David Crane to play an exaggerated version of himself in the sitcom Episodes. A big car enthusiast, he hosted Top Gear in both the UK and the US, but in 2022 he announced he was “on a break”, in the immortal words of Friends. “I’m taking some time off right now,” he said. “I’m just enjoying not having to do anything – it’s been kinda nice.”
Of course, LeBlanc, who is worth a reported US$85 million ($142m), never needs to work again. But without a project to focus on, friends are reportedly worried grief could consume him. “All of the Friends cast have faced challenges moving beyond their iconic roles because the success of the show set an incredibly high bar – how do you shake that label and find equally defining projects?” says Trice. “Who knows really when Matt will feel ready to explore new roles, or if he ever will. But for now, I think the most important thing is allowing him the time and space to decide what comes next on his own terms.”
This isn’t the first time LeBlanc has attracted concern. In 2012, he told an interviewer: “People will always ask me if I’m all right because I’m much more low key and reserved than my character in Friends. They think that I’m depressed, or I’m sad or upset – but I’m just not amped up to go out in front of an audience and do a TV show. That’s not who I am.”
Perry’s tragic demise has been dragged into the spotlight in recent weeks, as those around him are charged with supplying him with the ketamine that killed him. In October, one of Perry’s doctors, Mark Chavez, 54, became the third person to plead guilty (to conspiring to distribute ketamine in the aftermath of the Friends star’s fatal overdose last year. Sentencing will take place next year.
Also working with police are Perry’s assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, who admitted helping him obtain and inject ketamine, and a Perry acquaintance, Erik Fleming, who admitted acting as a drug messenger and middleman.
The three are helping prosecutors pursue Dr Salvador Plasencia, charged with illegally selling ketamine to Perry in the month before his death, and Jasveen Sangha, a woman who authorities say was known as the “Ketamine Queen” of Los Angeles. She is alleged to have sold the actor the lethal dose of ketamine. Both have pleaded not guilty. The trial is scheduled to begin on March 4, after a pre-trial hearing on February 19.
If convicted, Plasencia faces up to 10 years in prison for each of the eight ketamine-related charges, plus up to 20 years for each of two charges of falsifying documents. Meanwhile, Sangha (who was charged with one count of possession with intent to distribute ketamine, five counts of distribution of ketamine, one count of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, and one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises) faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if she’s convicted.
For LeBlanc, David Schwimmer, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow and Jennifer Aniston, who were last seen together at Perry’s funeral in November, it will be too little, too late. In a joint statement, the one-time co-stars said they were “utterly devastated … We are more than cast mates. We are a family”.
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