Max Honors Matthew Perry By Adding A Tribute To Each ‘Friends’ Season Premiere Episode

Max (formerly known as HBO Max) is honoring the late Matthew Perry and his Friends character Chandler Bing with a new change to every season premiere episode of the hit sitcom.

The streaming platform, which is home to all ten seasons of the NBC sitcom that made Perry and his five fellow Friends household names, has honored the late actor with a tribute card featured at the beginning of each season’s premiere episodes, per Gizmodo.

Now, whenever fans start a new season, they are met with a picture of Perry and the words “In memory of Matthew Perry 1969 – 2023.”

TMZ first broke the news of Perry’s death, reporting that he was found unresponsive after allegedly drowning in the jacuzzi at his home in Los Angeles. His family told the outlet that they “are heartbroken by the tragic loss of [their] beloved son and brother.”

“Matthew brought so much joy to the world, both as an actor and a friend,” they shared. “You all meant so much to him and we appreciate the tremendous outpouring of love.”

Perry struggled with alcohol and substance abuse and was very open about his path toward sobriety with the public, particularly in his 2022 memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing. While promoting the novel last November, he told the ladies of The View that starring on Friends “did help [him] with drugs and alcohol.”

“Because when I said to myself, ‘I’m on this amazing show, you can’t have the 17th drink when you have to be at work the next morning with these wonderful people and doing the job,'” he said during a 2022 appearance on the talk show.

Perry added, “I had a deal with myself that I would never drink or take anything while working and I held up to that deal but I was insanely hungover doing the work.”

Decider’s Brett White summed up Perry’s impact on the entertainment industry, highlighting that he “essentially invented a brand new sitcom archetype: the lovable, completely mild, self-deprecating smart aleck, an archetype that actors ranging from Josh Peck to John Krasinski would later build careers around.”

Friends is now streaming on Max.