Hank Azaria Recalls How ‘Brother’ Matthew Perry Helped Him Get Sober

Hank Azaria has joined the throng of Matthew Perry’s friends and collaborators who paid tribute to the Friends star. Azaria took to Instagram Sunday to post a somber memorial for Perry, who died unexpectedly at the age of 54 on Saturday.

Azaria, who appeared alongside Perry in five episodes of Friends, said the actor was his first friend when he moved to Los Angeles. Azaria was 21, while Perry was still just 16. Azaria said they “drank a lot together” and “laughed a lot together.” They were “really more like brothers for a long time,” according to the Dodgeball actor. “We were there for each other in the early days of our career.”

Azaria, who has been sober for 17 years, recalled that Perry was the first person who took him to an AA meeting. He noted that, when he was sober, Perry was unbelievably supportive to other people struggling with addiction. However, the Birdcage actor noted that Perry’s own addiction issues, with which he struggled on-and-off throughout his life, pushed him away from his support group.

“A lot of us who were really close to him felt like we lost him to drugs and alcohol a long time ago,” Azaria admitted. He said he could barely read Perry’s 2022 memoir because “the details [of his addiction] were so devastating.”

Azaria said that “in person, [Perry] was the funniest man ever.” He remembered spending night after night with Perry laughing uproariously at the Whole Nine Yards star’s masterful storytelling. “He just lived to laugh,” Azaria recalled.

“I wish he’d found it in himself to stay with the sober life more consistently,” Azaria ended his tribute. “I wish that I and the world could have gotten what the rest of his career would’ve been.”

Though a preliminary autopsy has been conducted, Perry's cause of death currently stands as "deferred" pending the results of a toxicology report. The actor had been sober and seemingly doing well in recent years following a brush with death that he detailed in his memoir, so it's unclear whether alcohol played a factor in his death.