With a gray beard and distinctive paunch, former Friends star Matt LeBlanc looked barely recognizable as he peered out from under a dark baseball cap in a series of sightings in Los Angeles last week.
Rarely seen in public since his co-star Matthew Perry’s death from a drug overdose in October 2023, the 57-year-old actor appeared disheveled and unkempt.
With the memory of Perry’s tragic death still vivid in the public consciousness, many feared that LeBlanc was also “falling apart,” and it was reported that Friends castmates Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox regularly visited LeBlanc at his house and “watched over” him.
On Friends, which aired from 1994 to 2004 and has continued to delight new audiences ever since, LeBlanc and Perry were inseparable as roommates Joey Tribbiani and Chandler Bing. Sitting side by side on matching couches, playing foosball or recounting disasters on their dates, the couple embodied the carefree optimism of youth. They were the happy-go-lucky friends every 20-something viewer wanted to be.
Matt LeBlanc and Matthew Perry in Friends, where they played inseparable roommates Joey Tribbiani and Chandler Bing.
That image was shattered when the scale of Perry’s drug use and addiction, the demons he battled and how vulnerable he was to exploitation was revealed.
But LeBlanc is also a far cry from the endearingly dark and excitable Joey character he played on screen.
He once told an interviewer, “I’m much more low-key and reserved than my character on Friends.” I’m just not excited to go out in front of an audience and do a TV show. That’s not who I am.’
On another occasion he explained: ‘What I like most is not working. I like being with my family or my friends, riding a bicycle. I do my thing, go home and live my life.’
And in recent years, as he has lost not only Perry but other people close to him, including fellow Friends actor James Michael Taylor, who played Gunther and who died of prostate cancer in 2021, it seems LeBlanc has made an effort conscious to protect. your health and sanity.
In a move some refer to as “quiet retirement”, the actor, who is worth £80million, is believed to have been inspired by Jack Nicholson, who retired in 2010 after 55 years in the industry.
“He is financially stable and no longer wants to be the center of attention,” said one observer.
LeBlanc is lucky not to be plagued by the addictions that ruined Perry’s life (smoking appears to be his only vice), but he is well aware of the fickle nature of show business and the dangers it poses to those enslaved.
Immediately after Friends ended, he appeared in a spin-off of the same name, Joey, for two series from 2004 to 2006 and, although it made him a fortune, the experience left him exhausted.
A decade after Joey broke up, he told an interviewer: ‘For years and years, I barely left the house. I was exhausted. Most actors call their agents and ask, ‘What’s going on?’ I would call mine and say, ‘Please lose my number for a few years.’
LeBlanc looks low-key while in Los Angeles last week
Away from the spotlight, the friendship between LeBlanc and Perry transcended their television roles.
The couple even lived near each other in the exclusive enclave of Pacific Palisades.
LeBlanc’s beautiful home features an impressive automobile collection centered around his beloved Porsches. Perry lived in a four-bedroom, four-bathroom house with sea views on a hilltop that has just sold for $8.55 million (£6.58 million).
And when Perry died the night of October 28 last year, in his hot tub from a ketamine overdose, neighbor LeBlanc was the first of the Friends cast to pay tribute to him.
‘Matthew. “I say goodbye with a heavy heart,” he wrote on Instagram. ‘The times we spent together are honestly among the favorite moments of my life.
‘It was an honor to share the stage with you and call you my friend. I will always smile when I think of you. And I will never forget you. Never.
‘Spread your wings and fly brother, you are finally free. Much love.’
And in an aside that would have delighted fans of the best on-screen bromance, he concluded with a light-hearted quip that could easily have been written by a Friends screenwriter: “And I guess you’ll get to keep the $20 you owe.” me.’
LeBlanc on set with other Friends stars (clockwise) Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer, Perry, Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox.
LeBlanc and Perry are back on the family set of Friends: The Reunion in 2021
That fateful day occurred just two years after the cast of Friends reunited for a one-off show watched by 5.3 million fans in the UK and many millions more around the world. While the group may be best known for their Friends performances, its members have carved out successful careers outside of it.
Aniston (who played Rachel Green in Friends) plays TV presenter Alex Levy in the hit Apple TV series The Morning Show, while Cox (Monica Geller) has become an entrepreneur with her own range of cleaning products for the high-end home.
Lisa Kudrow, who played the lovable Phoebe Buffay, is a producer on the US version of the reality show Who Do You Think You Are? and David Schwimmer (Ross Geller) plays a depressed Hollywood screenwriter in the midst of an existential crisis in his new film Little Death.
Meanwhile, LeBlanc doesn’t appear to have any projects in the pipeline and seems at peace with that. Perhaps not such a surprising step in the career of the man who landed the life-changing role of the lovable Joey at age 27, but never intended to have an acting career.
Raised largely by his mother Patricia in Massachusetts, his father Paul abandoned the family when LeBlanc was a baby, but returned to their lives when the actor was eight years old. Father and son have reportedly had a difficult relationship since then.
After high school, LeBlanc tried his hand at carpentry and studied a building management course at a local college.
LeBlanc dropped out of school and went to Florida to try to become a model.
Still in her teens, she dropped out of school and went to Florida to be a model. But with a big chest and only 5 feet 10 inches tall, he wasn’t what agencies were looking for, so he went to New York and took theater classes.
After small roles in film and television, he was down to his last $11 when he landed the role of Joey on Friends in 1994. The series was a worldwide hit in its ten seasons and continues to attract viewers.
Married in 2003 to British model Melissa McKnight, their daughter Marina was born in February of the following year, a few months before the last episode of Friends aired.
When Marina was 11 months old, she was diagnosed with cortical dysplasia, which affected her ability to walk and talk and could cause seizures. LeBlanc called this period of her life a “dark time,” but the girl eventually overcame that condition.
The couple divorced in 2006 but continues to co-parent Marina.
That’s when LeBlanc seemed to set in motion a pattern of prioritizing home life and keeping up with work, something he still tries to live up to.
He took his first extended break from acting after his Friends spin-off series, Joey, met with lukewarm reviews and lasted only two series. It was supposed to be a one-year hiatus, but it lasted five.
He said at the time: “Maybe having a daughter, maybe that’s what it was, but life is too short to be stressed about your career.” I don’t care as much as I used to.
He was lured back into the spotlight in 2011 as a fictional version of himself in the satirical Hollywood series Episodes alongside British actors Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan, for which he won a Golden Globe.
That series required him to work only four months a year, and LeBlanc described his months off as a time when he was happy to be “his true self.”
She told reporters from the Television Critics Association that her daily routine consisted of making breakfast for her daughter, taking her to and from school, and helping her with homework.
“We spend time together, travel and do all kinds of things like that, so I feel very lucky to be in a position where I don’t have to work (full time),” he said.
In 2016, LeBlanc was announced as one of the new presenters of the BBC’s flagship driving show, Top Gear. She joined after the departure of host Jeremy Clarkson and became the first non-British star to present the show.
LeBlanc spent three years co-presenting the hit 2016 driving show Top Gear.
He presented four series before retiring, saying it had been great fun but “it takes me away from my family and friends more than I’m comfortable with.”
The following year, German racing driver Sabine Schmitz, who had been a regular on Top Gear, died of cancer and LeBlanc was said to be deeply affected, especially as Friends co-star Tyler died that same year.
Cars remain a passion for LeBlanc and this week he was seen at a car showroom in Van Nuys, California, with Marina, talking to a salesman.
While it is true that he likes being at home, he is not a total recluse. He was recently spotted with friends at celebrity hangout Nobu in Malibu and is known to have a circle of trusted friends in both California and his home state of Massachusetts, and even attended his high school reunion.
He had a long romance with American actress Andrea Anders, whom he met in 2006 on the set of Joey. They were together for eight years before ending their relationship.
There was also another relationship with Top Gear producer Aurora Mulligan, but it ended a few years ago and there has apparently been no hint of a romance since their split.
But for fans still devastated by Matthew Perry’s death, they can at least take solace in the fact that LeBlanc appears to be following his own advice when he said in 2017 that he planned to “slow down and smell the roses.”