Jennifer Aniston has opened up about her late co-star Matthew Perry's death.

In a new interview with Vanity Fair, the actress revealed that she and Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer and Matt LeBlanc had been mourning their Friends co-star Perry even before his death.

"We did everything we could when we could," she said, referring to their efforts to support the actor, who died on 28 October 2023, aged 54, from accidental drowning caused by the acute effects of ketamine following years of addiction struggles.

"But it almost felt like we'd been mourning Matthew for a long time because his battle with that disease was a really hard one for him to fight," Aniston continued. "As hard as it was for all of us and for the fans, there's a part of me that thinks this is better."

She added, "I'm glad he's out of that pain."

In the weeks after his death, Aniston - who played Rachel Green in Friends - paid tribute to Perry, who portrayed Chandler Bing.

In her statement, the Just Go With It actress said that when she learned of Perry's passing, she was struck by an "insane wave of emotions" and emphasised that she "loved him deeply".

Perry's struggles with alcohol and drug addiction spanned decades. In his 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, he revealed that he had his first alcoholic drink at the age of just 14, later becoming addicted to painkillers after being prescribed medication following a jet ski accident.

In the memoir, he recalled Aniston once visiting him in his trailer to confront him about his drinking.

"'We can smell it,' she said, in a kind of weird but loving way, and the plural 'we' hit me like a sledgehammer," he wrote. "'I know I'm drinking too much,' I said, 'but I don't exactly know what to do about it.'"