Matthew Perry was immediately ‘attracted’ to Jennifer Aniston — how he reacted to her rejection
She was there for him.
Matthew Perry and Jennifer Aniston met long before they took on the roles of Chandler Bing and Rachel Green on their hit series, “Friends.”
The pair met through mutual acquaintances about three years before their time on the NBC comedy — and Perry was upfront about his feelings early on.
“I was immediately taken by her (how could I not be?) and liked her,” Perry shared in his 2022 memoir. “And I got the sense she was intrigued too — maybe it was going to be something.”
However, the actress gently turned him down after he was a bit overzealous calling her after he booked two gigs in one day.
“You’re the first person I wanted to tell this to!” he recalled telling her.
“Bad idea — I could feel ice forming through the phone,” Perry continued. “Looking back, it was clear that this made her think I liked her too much, or in the wrong kind of way … and I only compounded the error by then asking her out. She declined (which made it very difficult to actually go out with her), but said that she’d love to be friends with me, and I compounded the compound by blurting, ‘We can’t be friends!’
Perry’s crush would continue when they kicked off filming “Friends” in 1994.
“Fairly early in the making of ‘Friends’ I realized that I was still crushing badly on Jennifer Aniston,” he wrote. “Our hellos and goodbyes became awkward. And then I’d ask myself, ‘How long can I look at her? Is three seconds too long?’ ”
“At first it was like, she would walk in, I’d be like, ‘Hey, good to see you.’ And then I’d go to my dressing room and just go, ‘Oh, I’ll never be able to be with her,’ ” he remembered. “But how can you not have a crush on Jennifer Aniston, you know? But I did at one point just go, ‘All right, that’s enough.’ “
He added: “Fortunately, even though I was still attracted to her and thought she was so great, that first day we were able to sail right past the past and focus on the fact that we had both gotten the best job Hollywood had to offer.”
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Over time, Perry’s initial feelings faded away, and he humorously attributed it to Aniston’s “overwhelming lack of interest.” However, their connection grew stronger, and Perry revealed that it was Aniston who provided the most support during his battle with drug and alcohol addiction, which lasted for several years.
During their time working on “Friends,” Aniston was the co-star who confronted Perry about his drinking habits.
“I’m incredibly grateful to her for that,” Perry shared during an interview with Diane Sawyer on ABC News in October 2022, while promoting his memoir.
In 2004, prior to the series finale of “Friends” after a decade of collaboration, Aniston became emotional and shed tears while discussing Perry in an interview with Sawyer. She was asked about something each castmate didn’t know about themselves at the time.
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I hope he knows that he’s doing okay,” she expressed, referring to his self-awareness.
Sawyer’s voiceover interjected, “Perry fought a difficult battle against addiction. When it struck, his fellow actors made efforts to support him but lacked the knowledge to truly help.”
“He faced struggles,” Aniston continued. “We were unaware. We weren’t equipped to handle it. No one had encountered such a situation before. The thought of losing him was unimaginable. However, he’s making progress on his journey. He’s hanging in there.”
Perry tragically passed away from an apparent drowning incident in his California home at the end of last month. He was 54 years old.
The exact cause of his death is pending further investigation, as additional tests, including toxicology analysis, have been ordered.
In exclusive photographs obtained by The Post, Aniston, along with her “Friends” co-stars Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, and David Schwimmer, were seen at the Forest Lawn Church of the Hills in Los Angeles on Friday, presumably attending a funeral service for their beloved co-star.
“We are all profoundly devastated by Matthew’s loss. We were more than just colleagues; we were a family,” the actors stated jointly following his passing. “There are no words to express the depth of our grief and the shock of this incomprehensible loss. We will share more in due course, when we are ready. For now, our thoughts and love are with Matty’s family, friends, and all those who cherished him around the world.”