Lauren Graham is mourning the loss of good friend Matthew Perry following his death on Oct. 28 at the age of 54.
“This last year, he was so proud of the book he wrote, and of how many people it touched,” Graham, 56, said on a “CBS Mornings” appearance Thursday. “It was a success that gave him a level of happiness that I hadn’t seen in him for a really long time, so that’s a nice memory.”
“I am still in shock. I mean, it’s a really tragic loss, and he leaves his beautiful work behind,” she continued. “That’s something to be thankful for, and again, the book really meant something to him, so it was a really happy year for him.”
The “Friends” star and the “Gilmore Girls” alum were linked in 2003, but the pair “never exactly dated.”
“No one made me laugh as hard. Just tears, streaming,” Graham added on Thursday. “There was just such joy in being around him and being his friend.”
The pair co-starred in the 2008 indie movie “Birds of America.” A few years later, they once again shared the screen when Graham appeared alongside Perry in one 2015 episode of “The Odd Couple.” She played his ex-wife on the short-lived CBS reboot, which ran from 2015 to 2017.
During a Q&A for the show, the “17 Again” actor showered her with praise.
“She’s one of my favorite people,” he said. “We have great chemistry when working together and it’s fun to work with a close friend.”
One year after playing the odd couple, Graham mentioned the actor in her 2016 New York Times bestselling memoir, “Talking As Fast As I Can.”
“The only bright spot, dude-wise, was at an event where I met Matthew Perry,” she wrote. “He became my longtime Friend Who I Almost But Never Exactly Dated, or FWIABNED.”
The Golden Globe-nominated actress also took to X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) to congratulate Perry on his 2022 memoir, “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing.”
“Happy, happy pub day, @MatthewPerry! xL,” she wrote, adding two green hearts and a shamrock emoji.
Inside the memoir, Perry included a photo of him and Graham. The photo was simply captioned: “Me and the beautiful Lauren Graham.”
The Post confirmed in late October that the beloved “Fools Rush In” star was found underwater after officials received a phone call reporting that the late actor was in his hot tub and not breathing.
In a statement, the Los Angeles Police Department told The Post: “We responded to the 1800 block of Blue Sail Rd for a death investigation on a male 4:10 p.m. this afternoon. He was in his 50s.”
The caller’s identity has not been revealed by authorities, though TMZ reported it was Perry’s assistant, who made the call after returning from an errand.
“An adult male patient was deceased prior to first response arrival,” the LAFD said in a statement obtained by The Post. “The patient was found by a bystander who had re-positioned the victim where the head was out of water.”
Perry, who had been playing pickleball earlier in the day at Riviera Country Club, wasn’t in his hot tub for very long before he was found dead, according to TMZ.
The Emmy-nominated actor had a long history of drug and alcohol abuse and was candid about his decade’s long opioid and alcohol addiction in his book.
Perry revealed that he had attended 6,000 AA meetings, went to rehab 15 times, had 14 surgeries to try and mitigate the damage from his addiction, and had been in detox 65 times.
“The doctors told my family that I had a 2% chance to live,” Perry stated during a promotional interview for his book last year, after claiming that he almost died in 2018 due to a gastrointestinal perforation. “I was put on a thing called an ECMO machine, which does all the breathing for your heart and your lungs. And that’s called a Hail Mary. No one survives that.”
The actor, whose net worth was an estimated $120 million at the time of his death, according to Parade, once estimated he spent around $9 million trying to get sober.
Perry finally got control of his addiction in May 2021 and had been drug and alcohol-free since.
Perry’s five “Friends” co-stars — Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer — issued a joint statement nearly 48 hours after his death to People.
“We are all so utterly devastated by the loss of Matthew. We were more than just cast mates. We are a family,” their statement read. “There is so much to say, but right now we’re going to take a moment to grieve and process this unfathomable loss.”
“In time we will say more, as and when we are able,” they continued. “For now, our thoughts and our love are with Matty’s family, his friends, and everyone who loved him around the world.”