Late “Friends” star Matthew Perry played pickleball — an activity he loved and viewed as key to sober living — hours before his untimely death, the actor’s friend and coach said Monday.
Matt Manasse, Perry’s pickleball mentor and friend of two years, said Perry’s death on Saturday is particularly upsetting because the actor appeared to have turned a corner and was living a happy and clean life.
“I spoke to him last week, he was doing great, from what I heard and what I knew,” Manasse, a noted pickleball coach, told NBC News. “That’s the worst part about this. When I spoke to him he was chipper and upbeat — he was who he is, pumped about life.”
Perry last year came out with “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir,” starkly detailing his decadeslong struggle with alcohol and drug addictions.
Perry, 54, played pickleball four or five days a week and was on the court Saturday, according to Manasse, fully embracing the sport that the actor viewed as key to his recovery.
“I started with him about two years ago and I would bring all different types of people to come and play with him, and he would bring people, too, and people dealing with recovery issues,” Manasse said.
“He fell in love with the sport and he really wanted to use it for his recovery. It was sort of his new thing he could get behind and have on his calendar. Everyone who came in contact with him really cared about his recovery journey, and the flip side is he really cared about us. He cared about your success just as much as his own.”
Los Angeles firefighters and police rushed to Perry’s Pacific Palisades home on Saturday afternoon, responding to a 911 call about a “water emergency,” law enforcement sources said,
The investigation into Perry’s apparent drowning is continuing, though foul play is not suspected. Perry’s initial autopsy results were inconclusive, pending a toxicology report, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s office said Sunday.
