Matthew Perry and Courteney Cox will forever be recognized as Chandler and Monica,
who ended up as a surprise couple on NBC's "Friends" at the end of Season
4. But was the off-screen relationship between Perry and Cox purely platonic?
In real life, the two certainly were friends before Perry's untimely death in October 2023,
and there has been no indication that their romantic relationship extended
off-screen… but the truth behind their relationship is complicated.
Cox met and fell in love with actor David Arquette during production of
the first "Scream" film in 1996. They married in
1999 and stayed together throughout the run of “Friends," then divorced in 2013.
Although he would never get married, Perry himself would
go on to have several relationships with well-known women, though never with Cox.
According to a 2019 Us Weekly report,
Perry developed feelings for Cox during their time on "Friends," and the feelings did not
end with the series finale in 2004. A source close to Perry told the outlet,
"Matthew's always been in love with her."
They added that Perry had, quote, "never fully been able to get over her." Of course,
he went through many relationships following his time on "Friends," including with actors Julia
Roberts and Lizzy Caplan, and most recently talent manager and producer Molly Hurwitz,
to whom he became engaged in 2020 after two years of dating.
However, his engagement with Hurwitz did not work out, and they broke up around June 2021. Perry was
quite cryptic about the circumstances that led to their breakup. He told People at the time,
"Sometimes things just don't work out and this is one of them. I wish Molly the best."
In the long-awaited "Friends: The Reunion," which aired in May 2021,
cast mates David Schwimmer and Jennifer Aniston, famously revealed that, like their characters,
they each had crushes on one another, though they never acted on it. However,
when it came to Matthew Perry's feelings for Courteney Cox, the actor kept his mouth shut.
Perry did, however, talk about how nervous he would be onstage,
always paranoid that his performance wasn't up to par.
"I felt like I was going to die if they didn't laugh."
In a February 2022 interview with The Times, Cox said in response,
"That was a lot of pressure he put on himself. That's a lot,
to think how much he relied on that for his own self-worth."
When it came to Perry's issues with addiction,
Cox had an optimistic outlook at the time, saying, "I think he's doing great now."
While Cox appeared to be there for Perry during his darkest days,
he was always there for her, too. According to Perez Hilton,
when she split from Johnny McDaid in 2015, Perry was the first to reach out and offer support.
Despite Perry and Cox's relationship only ever being platonic, both actors were known to gush
about each other, particularly when it came to their chemistry as co-stars.
Perry's crush was evident in a comment he posted on X, formerly Twitter,
after Cox guest starred on his NBC series "Go On" in 2013.
"She is fantastic, obviously. And my desire to show off in front of her is back in full swing!"
Cox reciprocated by raving about Perry after
he guest-starred on her show "Cougar Town" a year later.
"It's so great to work with him. He's so sweet."
Cox also credited Perry for making her look good
on camera during their sitcom days, telling Conan O'Brien,
"When I worked with him on 'Friends,' he literally gave me my personality for 10 years."
Cox also shared her love for Perry's acting skills in the "Friends 'til the End" series companion
book written by David Wild. She hailed Perry as a "comic genius" and said he was second to none
at delivering lines. Cox said she'd learned a lot from him and shared that she viewed him as family.
Cox may not have shared Perry's romantic feelings, but she was still there for him
in every other way. She captioned an adorable selfie of the two posing in November 2019,
"Guess who I had lunch with today....I KNOW!! Could I BE any happier?"
Cox took to social media again in 2022, this time to praise Perry over the
runaway success of his memoir "Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing."
Then, in an interview with BuzzFeed, Cox credited Perry's talent for "showing vulnerability" as the
reason why "everyone loves him so much." But, no matter how hard she tried, Cox could never
outdo Perry's level of adoration. He described her as "cripplingly beautiful" in his memoir.