Lisa Kudrow Found A Heartwarming Reminder Of Matthew Perry After His Death

Over a year after his passing, Matthew Perry is still on his friends' and "Friends" costars' minds. On a January 2025 episode of "The Drew Barrymore Show," Lisa Kudrow revealed she recently found a heartwarming reminder of Perry over 20 years after he gave it to her: a note inside a cookie jar from "Friends." 

"Matthew gave that to me at the end of our last episode," Kudrow said during a discussion with Barrymore about props taken from set. "And I had recently found the note that he had in it for me. I hadn't opened it up or looked inside of it. But yeah, he did. He had a note in there and I forgot about it." Kudrow didn't disclose what Perry's note said, seeming to elect to keep that information close to her heart.

The jar in question came from a "Friends" scene where Kudrow's character Phoebe had to glance at a watch before exiting the set. "It was too late when I realized I don't have a watch," she told Jimmy Kimmel in a 2020 episode of "Jimmy Kimmel Live." She didn't have a watch, but there was something even better for Phoebe — a jar saying "Cookie Time." "As the words were coming out I went, 'Oh, good, there's a clock.' I gestured to that and said, 'Oh, look at the time. I gotta get going.'" As Kudrow and Barrymore both said on the daytime talk show, "Timing is everything" — with heartfelt letters, and with cookie jar clocks.

Like many, Lisa Kudrow was shocked and heartbroken by Matthew Perry's death in October 2023 from a ketamine overdose, and she took to social media to remember him with a tear-jerking post. "Thank you for making me laugh so hard at something you said, that my muscles ached, and tears poured down my face EVERY DAY," she captioned an Instagram post in November 2023 honoring Perry. "Thank you for your open heart in a six way relationship that required compromise. ... Thank you for the best 10 years a person gets to have. Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for all I learned about GRACE and LOVE through knowing you. Thank you for the time I got to have with you, Matthew." Since his death, Kudrow has found an endearing way to honor Perry — by rewatching "Friends."

When Perry passed, Kudrow, Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer, Courteney Cox, and Matt LeBlanc released a joint statement about Perry. Per Variety, in part it read, "We are all so utterly devastated by the loss of Matthew. We were more than just cast mates. We are a family." Like some families, their bond was strong, even if the six "Friends" stars didn't get together as a full group often over the years. During a 2024 interview with Jesse Tyler Ferguson for his "Dinner's on Me" podcast, Kudrow spoke about the sitcom's 2021 reunion special. Prior to that, "We'd only had dinner, the six of us, once before since the show had ended." Even after all the time apart, it was just like old times when the gang got together. "Just us at someone's house and [we] had dinner, and like, didn't miss a beat," Kudrow said.