While I was at my best friend’s house for a Halloween party, I got a text from my mom that altered my mood for the rest of the night: “Matt Perry died.”
I immediately told my best friend, who then told her mom, who then told their family friend, and soon enough, everybody at the party had heard about the tragedy.
I have always had too soft a spot for certain celebrities, and Matthew Perry was one of them. After seeing him struggle for so long and come back strong through trial and error, I have always had a deep-seated respect for him and his resilience.
He held strong to his ideals of being remembered as someone who did their best to help others; he created a “sobriety house” for individuals suffering from addiction to create a rehabilitation space for them that would allow them to thrive as humans without judgment.
Regardless of this, people who are self-proclaimed fans of the late actor have turned on him, primarily blaming his death on his history of substance abuse. His unusual or “strange” recent activity on social media–primarily on Instagram–has made people wonder, myself included, but nothing is certain to us as outsiders to the situation.
Nobody knows every detail, and we can only speculate, but that does not mean that we have any place to assume that he had fallen back into such a harmful condition. It is not the business of anybody except for those directly connected to him how he died. The only business that any “fan” can have with any of this is the understanding and respect of the turmoil and pain being experienced.
Following his recovery, he dedicated his life to helping others in the same situation he had once been in; he wanted to inspire people. He wanted to be remembered as somebody who overcame and who helped others to do the same, but because of the dynamic of our world today, he is only being remembered in many places as a man who struggled, instead of as a man who struggled and prevailed.
There are so many things wrong with the way this situation is being handled by the media, but it’s mainly by the hands of the more outspoken fans with their misplaced concerns. I didn’t want to believe the news of his passing, but I would never take that so far as to harass the people he was close with.
Following the news of his death, I found thousands of comments on his social media posts that only consisted of fans mourning his death, but also essentially demanding that his Friends co-stars confirm the information.
Of course, the people who had been working closely with Perry for over a decade and who loved and cherished his presence are not going to make a post right after a tragedy.
They do not owe it to anybody to post just to make them believe the news.
They do not owe it to anybody to give up their time for grieving to simply satisfy the internet’s wants.
As “fans,” it is not our place to pry into the lives of those grieving the loss of somebody close to them.
Yes, it’s absolutely not my place to say anything, either, but it breaks my heart to see people hurting the honor of a man who fought so hard to regain it.
His legacy as a lasting support system for struggling addicts in their journey to sobriety will live on, even after his death.
