Lauren Graham is mourning the loss of good friend Matthew Perry following his death on Oct. 28 at the age of 54.
“This last year, he was so proud of the book he wrote, and of how many people it touched,” Graham, 56, said on a “CBS Mornings” appearance Thursday. “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.
“I am still in shock. I mean, it’s a really tragic loss, and he leaves his beautiful work behind,” she continued. “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.”
The “Friends” star and the “Gilmore Girls” alum were linked in 2003, but the pair “never exactly dated.”
“No one made me laugh as hard. Just tears, streaming,” Graham added on Thursday. “There was just such joy in being around him and being his friend.”
The pair co-starred in the 2008 indie movie “Birds of America.” In 2015, they once again shared the screen when Graham appeared alongside Perry in a single episode of “The Odd Couple.” She played his ex-wife on the short-lived CBS reboot, which ran from 2015 to 2017.
During a Q&A for the show, the “17 Again” actor showered her with praise.
“She’s one of my favorite people,” he said. “We have great chemistry when working together and it’s fun to work with a close friend.”
One year after Graham’s “Odd Couple” appearance, she discussed the actor, in her bestselling 2016 memoir, “Talking As Fast As I Can.”
“The only bright spot, dude-wise, was at an event where I met Matthew Perry,” she wrote. “He became my longtime Friend Who I Almost But Never Exactly Dated, or FWIABNED.”
The Golden Globe-nominated actress also took to X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) to congratulate Perry on his 2022 memoir, “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing.”
“Happy, happy pub day, @MatthewPerry! xL,” she wrote, adding two green hearts and a shamrock emoji.
Inside the memoir, Perry included a photo of himself and Graham. The photo was simply captioned: “Me and the beautiful Lauren Graham.”
Read more about Matthew Perry’s life and struggles:
- ‘I had a 2 percent chance to live’: Matthew Perry opens up about addiction in new memoir
- Matthew Perry: I ‘was so dead inside’ during ‘Friends’ finale, I ‘felt nothing’
- Matthew Perry reveals what made him quit drugs: ‘It was pretty hellish’
- Matthew Perry reveals ‘Friends’ co-stars confronted him about sobriety
- Matthew Perry admits he ‘probably spent $9 million’ trying to get sober
The cast has since all posted individual tributes to their respective social media accounts. Perry was buried during a funeral service at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Los Angeles on Nov. 8.