'Friends' Cast Held Hands and Stood Around Matthew Perry's Open Casket at Actor's 'Very Small' Funeral, His Sister Reveals

The Friends cast came together to say goodbye to Matthew Perry in an emotional scene at his 2023 funeral.

Perry's sister, Mia Bowich, recalled seeing the Friends stars, Courteney Cox, Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer and Matt LeBlanc, arrive at her brother's November 3, 2023, funeral in Netflix's three-part documentary, The One About Matthew Perry.

"At the funeral, we arranged for just the family to have it be open casket for a little while for all of us. The funeral was very small — close friends and family," Bowich said.

"The rest of the Friends cast all walked in together. I hadn't seen them in easily 20 years. Jen Aniston was the first one of them to come up to me and give me a huge hug. But they all did," she continued. "And then, all five of them walked up to the casket holding hands and stood around him, crying."

As OK! previously reported, Perry died at age 54 on October 28, 2023, after he was found unresponsive in the hot tub at his Los Angeles home.

His cause of death was later ruled an accident caused by the acute effects of ketamine, with drowning and coronary artery disease listed as contributing factors.

Five people were sentenced in federal court for their roles in supplying Perry with illegal ketamine.

Perry was open about his struggles with addiction, well documented in his 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing.

The documentary also revealed that production for Friends was paused in 2001 while Perry went to rehab.

"There was an incredible amount of shame and guilt that came along with that, because he knew how many people were working on these shows, that their livelihood was dependent on it," Bowich recalled. "He hated that he had to do that to people, but he also knew that he had to get well."

Bowich explained that during Season 7, Perry traveled back and forth between rehab and the Friends set.

Perry's character, Chandler Bing, married Cox's Monica Geller on the show's Season 7 finale. According to Bowich, both families came to the set to watch the wedding scene be filmed because they were all "worried" about Perry.

"We don't know what’s going to happen in the future. To try to navigate relationships while also battling this crippling addiction is, I would say, near impossible," Bowich explained. "So I think the unspoken truth that we all were sitting with in some way or another was, 'Is this his wedding?' I was on set, and I remember watching Monica walk down the aisle, and when Matthew said his vows to her, the emotion in his eyes, everything was so real."

She continued, "He and Courteney had such a lovely relationship, and years working through this thing that there was so clearly actual love there — platonic love, but love. It’s a happy memory, mixed with some sadness."