The In Memoriam portion of any awards ceremony is a poignant tribute to those who have died within the past year. One question that many Friends fans asked when they watched the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards was why Matthew Perry wasn’t included in that section.
Matthew Perry died at the age of 54 from an apparent drowning, according to TMZ. The publication reported that the Friends actor was found dead in a hot tub at his home in Los Angeles, California, on Saturday, October 28, 2023. On December 15, 2023, the full toxicology report was revealed, finding his cause of death was due to “the acute effects of ketamine,” according to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office. Contributing factors in the Friends actor’s death included drowning, coronary artery disease and the effects of buprenorphine (used to treat opioid use disorder). Five people were arrested in August 2024 in correlation to his death.
Related: The Eerie Texts Matthew Perry’s Doctors Sent Right Before His Death, Revealed
Why wasn’t Matthew Perry in the 76th Primetime Emmys In Memoriam?
Matthew Perry wasn’t featured in the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards because he was already featured in the 75th Primetime Emmys in January 2024. The 75th Primetime Emmy Awards was postponed from November 2023 due to the SAG-AFTRA and Writer’s Guild of America strike. Because Perry died in October 2023, he was featured in that section at that time.
The Emmys producers planned to get the Friends cast to get involved with the section in January 2024, but scrapped it because the death was still close. “It’s still very fresh for them,” Jeannae Rouzan-Clay told The Hollywood Reporter. Jessie Collins continued, “We had talked about it early on — but I can imagine, from their side, they’re mourning someone who was still very close to them. I can’t speak for them, but we all have to respect that they were their own family. It was probably just a little too soon.”
In August 2023, US District Attorney Martin Estrada said in a press conference that Perry relapsed from his substance abuse issues last fall and the five people charged with his death “took advantage to profit for themselves.”
