Julia Roberts breaks silence on ex Matthew Perry’s untimely death

Julia Roberts is speaking out for the first time since the passing of her ex-boyfriend. 

Matthew Perry at the young age of 54. The Oscar winner expressed her heartbreak over anyone dying so young, encouraging others to appreciate what they have.

“The sudden passing of anybody so young is heartbreaking,” she told Entertainment Tonight.

“I think that, you know, it just helps all of us just appreciate what we have and to keep going in a positive way as best we can,” she reflected.

Roberts and Perry dated briefly in the mid-1990s after meeting on the set of Friends, where she made a cameo. Their romance blossomed from Perry sending the actress complex physics notes in an effort to woo her into the role.

“Her reply was that if I adequately explained quantum physics to her, she’d agree to be on the show,” he wrote in his memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing. 

“The following day, I sent her a paper all about wave-particle duality and the uncertainty principle and entanglement, and only some of it was metaphorical.”

This began a whirlwind three-month courtship involving daily faxes that evolved into phone calls lasting over five hours.

However, the actor's well-documented struggles with addiction prevented the relationship from continuing.

As Perry recalled, he broke things off pre-emptively due to deep-seated insecurity that Roberts would ultimately leave him, feeling unworthy.

Despite their past romance ending, Roberts spoke warmly about her time on Friends and with co-star Perry. 

“They were all so welcoming to me as just a kind of one-off character and it was a really fun time,” she told ET.