“Gilmore Girls” alum Lauren Graham said Thursday that longtime pal Matthew Perry had a particularly happy year before his death last month. (Watch the video below.)
Graham told “CBS Mornings” that the “Friends” star took great satisfaction from the success of his memoir, “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing,” which was released in November 2022 and became a bestseller. (It returned as a bestseller after Perry was found dead in his hot tub on Oct. 28. The cause of death on his recently released death certificate was listed as “pending investigation.”)
“This last year, he was so proud of the book he wrote, and of how many people it touched,” Graham said. “It was a success that gave him a level of happiness that I hadn’t seen in him for a really long time, so that’s a nice memory.”
Graham, who starred with Perry in the 2008 movie “Birds of America,” said she was still in shock at his death but took consolation knowing that “he leaves his beautiful work behind.”
She added, “That’s something to be thankful for, and again, the book really meant something to him, so it was a really happy year for him.”
Graham, who was promoting her book “Have I Told You This Already?”, recalled Perry’s ability to keep her in stitches.
“No one made me laugh as hard. Just tears, streaming,” she said. “There was just such joy in being around him and being his friend.”
Perry once called Graham “one of my favorite people” in a Q&A for his 2015-17 sitcom revival “The Odd Couple,” Deadline reported. “We have great chemistry when working together and it’s fun to work with a close friend,” he said.