Matthew Perry (1969-2023): The Friends star found God at his lowest moment

Matthew Perry, best known for playing Chandler Bing in Friends, died at the weekend. Greg Downes pays tribute to a comic genius who had powerful encounters with God

Friends was first aired when I was a student at the University of Oxford. It quickly became compulsive viewing - not only among myself and my friends, but among an entire generation of single 20-somethings, who were the same age as the protagonists depicted in the cult TV show. Matthew Langford Perry, who player Chandler Bing, was born just six months after me.

Fame came early to Perry, who once prayed when he was young: “God, you can do whatever you want to me, just please make me famous”. He later referred to it as “very dumb prayer” and, towards what would sadly be the end of his life, he reflected: “Now, all these years later, I’m certain that I got famous so I would not waste my entire life trying to get famous. You have to get famous to know that it’s not the answer. And nobody who is not famous will ever truly believe that.”