Fans are reacting to news of actor Matthew Perry’s death by remembering his life.
That means more of them are listening to the iconic “Friends” theme song, “I’ll Be There for You” by the Rembrandts. Per The New York Post, the song had more than 1.3 million streams across Spotify and YouTube this week.
Perry was found dead at his Los Angeles home on Saturday from an apparent drowning in his hot tub. The actor was just 54.
One year ago, the “Friends” star released a memoir called, “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing.” The hardcover version of his book shot to the number one spot on Amazon’s Best Sellers in Memoirs list. Meanwhile, the paperback version was in the number three position as of Monday night.
The book went into depth about Perry’s struggle with drug and alcohol addiction, including one near-death experience when he suffered a perforated colon and had to undergo emergency surgery. “The doctors told my family that I had a 2 percent chance to live,” he explained.
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“I’ve probably spent $9 million or something trying to get sober,” he said of his addiction struggles. Perry recalled at one point he was taking up to 55 Vicodin pills per day.
The “Friends” star told Tom Power during an interview that he wanted to be remembered as someone who tried to help other addicts on their road to recovery even if he wasn’t ideally helping himself.
“I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in life. I’m still working through it personally, but the best thing about me is that if an alcoholic or drug addict comes up to me and says, ‘Will you help me?’ I will always say, ‘Yes, I know how to do that. I can do that for you, even if I can’t always do it for myself.’ So I do that, whenever I can,” Perry told Power during the interview, as The Daily Wire previously reported.
“When I die, I know people will talk about ‘Friends,’ ‘Friends,’ ‘Friends,’” the actor added. “And I’m glad of that, happy I’ve done some solid work as an actor, as well as given people multiple chances to make fun of my struggles on the world wide web. But when I die, as far as my so-called accomplishments go, it would be nice if ‘Friends’ were listed far behind the things I did to try to help other people. I know it won’t happen, but it would be nice.”
Virginia Kruta contributed to this report.