Matthew Perry left Lauren Graham with a heartwarming final gift before his tragic death. The Gilmore Girls alum, 57, just shared the sweet story of the birthday gift the Friends star gave her in March 2023, seven months before he died at the age of 54 in an apparent drowning.
Graham revealed during her Have I Told You This Already? book tour at the Lincoln Theater in Washington, D.C. on Friday that Perry bought her a pickleball set before his passing, as per Deadline. “He’s like really into tennis and pickleball, with a card that said, ‘Be older,’ ” she recalled, calling his death “a terrible loss” and “still really hard to believe.”
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“While he was not technically ever a boyfriend, he was an almost in my life,” Graham continued of her relationship with Perry, whom she called “a friend and a constant.” She remembered, “We would stretch for a year, then he would come back in my life, and he had just come back in my life last year,”
The late sitcom actor also included a photo with Graham in his 2022 memoir Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, which he captioned, “Me and the beautiful Lauren Graham.” The Parenthood actress added Friday that Perry was happy that his memoir had such a positive reception, saying, “The solace I take from having seen him at the time I saw him was he was so thrilled with how his book was received – and not just because it was a huge success, but because his life’s work kind of became, ‘How can I give back? How can I talk about the struggles I had and hopefully help someone else?’”
In November, Graham appeared on CBS Mornings to reflect on her past with Perry, saying at the time, “No one made me laugh as hard. I mean, just tears streaming. There was just such joy in being around him and being his friend.”
“And I’ll say too, that this last year, he was so proud of the book he wrote and of how many people it touched,” she added, “and 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 continued, “It’s just a really tragic loss and he leaves his beautiful work behind and 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.”
