Matthew Perry 'is as complicated posthumously as he was alive' after BAFTA snub
Matthew Perry is as complicated posthumously as he was when alive.
This weekend there was public outcry when his name was left out of the BAFTA ceremony In Memoriam tribute – they’ve since clarified that he’ll be honoured in the forthcoming TV BAFTAs instead – but being outraged on his behalf, standing up for him, defending him, has become more difficult in recent weeks.
When he drowned last October, many of us were devastated in that unique way celebrity deaths can sometimes affect you. Technically he was a complete stranger, and yet, somehow it felt like we’d lost a friend in more ways than one.
Then, in January, dark allegations about him being physically abusive to women emerged. It was claimed that he “threw a coffee table” at his ex-fiancee Molly Hurwitz in 2021, and “shoved his live-in sober companion Morgan Moses into a wall and threw her on to a bed” in March 2022.
A source was quoted as saying: “The man those close to him knew and the man that the world saw were two very different people.”
Emily Atack and Frankie Bridge lead glamour in daring frocks at pre-BAFTAs party
The obvious problem with all this is that Matthew Perry is not here to respond to these allegations. His representatives didn’t reply to requests for comment when these stories were printed, and neither did either of the people they concern.
Of course we must Believe Women, but isn’t everyone innocent until proven guilty too, and we’re also not meant to speak ill of
the dead? See, complicated as ever.
This whole issue also raises, yet again, the dilemma of whether it’s possible to separate the art from the artist. Can you still enjoy Michael Jackson, Chris Brown and Kanye West’s music? Roman Polanski’s films? Bill Cosby’s comedy?
In theory, it’s like going out for dinner in a restaurant. You can appreciate a delicious meal without knowing whether the chef who cooked it for you is a good person or an absolute rotter.
In practice, when Thriller comes on the radio, I change the station. And, to me, the idea of watching Friends now is difficult and confusing. I feel bad, and I feel bad for feeling bad. But there’s already so much to try to overlook when it comes to seeing Chandler on-screen these days, because Matthew gave such detailed information about his agonising personal battles.
“You can track the trajectory for my addiction if you gauge my weight from season to season,” he wrote in memoir Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing. “When I’m carrying weight, it’s alcohol; when I’m skinny, it’s pills. When I have a goatee, it’s lots of pills.” Friends is becoming a comedy it’s increasingly hard to laugh at.
Matthew Perry’s existence was full of contradictions. He had everything, and nothing. He was one of life’s big winners, and losers. He had it easy, and impossible.
Now his troubled life is over, how horribly on-brand that he can’t even rest in peace.
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