Matthew Perry’s pickleball coach, Matt Manasse, shared insight into the late actor’s love for the sport he was playing hours before his tragic death.
“He thought it was something that could help with his recovery and he was doing an awesome job,” Manasse told People in an interview published Sunday.
“He loved it. He came out five times a week, would always talk about it. [He] got so much better, always made everyone laugh. He was competitive, just a genuine, good guy — caring for everybody.”
Pvnew confirmed the “Friends” star died Saturday in an apparent drowning at his house in Los Angeles. He was 54.
TMZ reported that Perry was found unresponsive in a jacuzzi by his assistant after playing a two-hour pickleball game earlier in the day.
During his interview with People, Manasse, 35, confirmed that Perry had played a match at the Riviera Country Club near his Pacific Palisades home with another coach that morning.
She had told him that the “17 Again” actor was “doing really well” on the court.
“Pickleball was his outlet. He really looked forward to it. He was a competitive guy, not in a bad way at all,” the athletic coach explained.
“He loved it. He wanted to come out. He wanted to win. He loved it. When he hit an unbelievable shot, he would tell you about it for days.”
According to Manasse, the “Fools Rush In” star used pickleball as an outlet to maintain his sobriety following his decades-long struggle with drug and alcohol addiction. In fact, Perry was also helping others with their recovery through the sport.
“He had so much that he was doing with his rehab facility and trying to get people clean,” he said. “He would bring them to teach them pickleball. He was just always trying to help people.”
Read more about Matthew Perry’s life and struggles:
- 55 Vicodin & a quart of vodka: The most shocking tales from Matthew Perry’s tell-all memoir
- Matthew Perry: How to tell which drugs I used during ‘Friends’
- Matthew Perry reveals why he broke up with Julia Roberts in the ’90s
- Matthew Perry claims Cameron Diaz once punched him in the face on secret date
- Matthew Perry, Valerie Bertinelli made out while Eddie Van Halen was passed out
In addition to remembering the actor as “selfless,” Manasse described Perry as a “genuinely amazing person” with “a heart of gold.”
Perry — who estimated that he spent $9 million trying to get sober over the years — previously detailed his addiction in his 2022 memoir, “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing.”
“Not only do I have the disease, but I also have it bad,” he wrote in the book. “I have it as bad as you can have it, in fact. It’s back-to-the-wall time all the time. It’s going to kill me…”
According to TMZ, foul play is not suspected in the sitcom star’s death and no illegal drugs were found at the scene.
