Matthew Perry‘s former fiancée has penned a tribute to the late actor, reflecting on his comedic “brilliance” and the “profound impact” he had on her.
Molly Hurwitz, a literary manager, got engaged to Perry in November 2020 after the pair dated for about two years. In June 2021, Perry announced the couple had gone their separate ways.
“Sometimes things just don’t work out and this is one of them,” the actor said at the time.
In the wake of Perry’s death at 54, Hurwitz shared a photo to Instagram of the actor looking out onto a frozen Rideau Canal in Ottawa. Perry lived in Ottawa for a time during his childhood, with his Canadian mother Suzanne Perry, who worked as a press secretary for then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau.
“He would love that the world is talking about how talented he was,” Hurwitz began her post. “And he really was very talented.”
Hurwitz recalled how she and Perry did a rewatch of Friends in the run-up to the show’s reunion special that aired in 2021. Perry won an Emmy in 2002 for his work as Chandler Bing on the series.
“As the Friends reunion was approaching, we rewatched the show together. ‘F–k, I was so good!!!…See what I did there???’ We rewound and studied scenes. Our respect and appreciation of humor is something that connected us,” Hurwitz wrote. “Being with him as he rediscovered his brilliance was magical.”
But like all relationships, not everything was perfect.
“I obviously knew that man in a very different way, too,” Hurwitz said. “While I loved him deeper than I could comprehend, he was complicated, and he caused pain like I’d never known.”
“No one in my adult life has had a more profound impact on me than Matthew Langford Perry,” she continued. “I have tremendous gratitude for that, for everything I learned from our relationship.”
Hurwitz also mentioned Al-Anon in her post, calling it “an invaluable resource for those who love someone struggling with this destructive disease.”
Perry opened up about his struggles with alcohol and drug addiction in his 2022 memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing. He told the New York Times that he hopes the book encourages people struggling with addiction to seek help.
“There’s help out there,” he said at the time of the book’s publication. “If I didn’t get help, I wouldn’t be sitting here.”
“Matty, I feel relief that you are at peace,” Hurwitz concluded her post.
Recently, Perry’s castmates from the set of Friends broke their silence on the actor’s death.
“We are all so utterly devastated by the loss of Matthew,” the statement signed by Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer said. “We were more than just castmates. We are a family.”
“There is so much to say, but right now we’re going to take a moment to grieve and process this unfathomable loss.”
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
