Courteney Cox says late Matthew Perry still ‘visits’ her

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Nearly seven months after his death, Courteney Cox say she still feels a closeness to her late Friends co-star, Matthew Perry.

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In an interview with CBS Sunday Morning, Cox opened up on spirituality, revealing to the program that she continues to feel the presence of loved ones who have died.

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“I’m so thankful I got to work so closely with him for so many years. He visits me a lot, if we believe in that,” Cox said of Perry.

Cox said Perry “obviously struggled,” but hailed him as a huge talent during their decade working together on the NBC sitcom, which wrapped up its TV run two decades ago.

“I think he’s probably one of the funniest human beings in the world. He’s just so funny. He is genuinely a huge heart,” the 59-year-old actress said.

Cox, who played Monica Geller alongside Perry’s Chandler Bing on Friends, went on to add that she’s been able to maintain relationships with many people she has lost in her life. “I’ve talked to my mom, my dad, Matthew. I feel like there are a lot of people that are … they guide us. I do sense, yeah, I sense Matthew’s around for sure,” she said.

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Perry, who battled drug and alcohol addiction for much of his life, died last fall from the lethal effects of the anesthetic ketamine. He was 54.

In her conversation with CBS Sunday Morning, Cox spoke about her time on the show, saying that she and her castmates — who also included Jennifer Aniston as Rachel, Lisa Kudrow as Phoebe, Matt LeBlanc as Joey and David Schwimmer as Ross — “went through everything” together.

“I’m just so grateful that I had that opportunity to work with such wonderful people. To live the life that I have now. That was my family. We went through everything. Those 10 years were everything … they’re my family,” she said.

Landing the role of Monica back in 1994 also came at the right time in her career, she added.

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“That was at the tail end of when I was really running out of money. I got an audition, I went in, I read the pilot, I said this is great, but you didn’t know how special it was. But then when you put this cast together, our incredible writers, it was like lightning in a bottle,” she said.

Following Perry’s death last October, the cast of Friends issued a statement saying they were “utterly devastated by the loss of Matthew.”

Cox paid tribute to her TV husband in her own special way the following month.

“I am so grateful for every moment I had with you Matty and I miss you every day,” she wrote alongside a clip from the hit NBC comedy that ran for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004.

“When you work with someone as closely as I did with Matthew, there are thousands of moments I wish I could share,” she added. “For now here’s one of my favourites.”

In the clip, Ross was seen running into the room to share his excitement over getting married. “I’m getting married, today!” Ross exclaimed as Chandler says, “Yeah, you are.” After Ross left, his sister Monica (Cox) popped out from under the sheets and asked, “You think he knew I was here?” which had the studio audience erupting in cheers.

“To give a little backstory, Chandler and Monica were supposed to have a one night fling in London. But because of the audience’s reaction, it became the beginning of their love story,” Cox wrote. “In this scene, before we started rolling, he whispered a funny line for me to say. He often did things like that. He was funny and he was kind.”

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Monica and Chandler eventually got together for good on the sitcom and were married in a 2001 episode. In the series finale, which aired in May 2004, the couple adopted a twin boy and girl.

Like the rest of the cast, Cox was repeatedly asked over the years if they would ever consider doing a sequel series, but she said, “I just don’t see it happening.”

“People ask us all the time, ‘Will we ever do a remake?’ That was a story about these group of people that are friends in their 30s who are finding themselves. I don’t know if there’s a way to redo it,” Cox told PEOPLE in 2019.

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