On her Instagram Story, the actor shared a screenshot from Perry’s foundation, which included a lovely black-and-white photo of him
laughing.
“For #GivingTuesday please join me and Matty’s family in supporting his foundation – which is working to help those suffering with
addiction 🤍,” Aniston wrote over the photo. “He would have been grateful for the love 🥰.”
The Matthew Perry Foundation is a project Perry had been working on before his passing on October 28, and was launched by the late actor’s loved ones a week after his death, with the aims of “identifying addiction as a disease, addressing the complex of stigmas that prevents individuals from seeking and accessing care, and fiercely advocating for better and more equitable treatment,” a statement said.
Perry was open about his struggles with drugs and alcohol through the years, and while he was in and out of rehab for most of his adult life, he also worked tirelessly to help others free themselves from addiction. Over the years, he lobbied in Washington, D.C., for drug courts, pushing for drug offenders to be sentenced to long-term treatment and other forms of help rather than receiving jail time. In 2013, he received a Champion of Recovery award from the Obama White House. And in 2015, he opened a men’s sober living facility called Perry House in his former Malibu home. (It ran until 2021.)
In his memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, Perry famously wrote, “When I die, I don’t want Friends to be the first thing that’s mentioned—I want helping others to be the first thing that’s mentioned. And I’m going to live the rest of my life proving that.” That quote now lives on the home page of his foundation’s website.