As reclusive Matt LeBlanc is pictured a year after Matthew Perry’s death, the real reason he is rarely seen in public – and why he’s determined not to fall into the same traps that destroyed his on-screen flatmate, as revealed by BARBARA McMAHON

With a gray beard and a noticeable paunch, former Friends star Matt LeBlanc looked barely recognizable as he peered out from under a dark baseball cap during a series of sightings in LA last week.

The 57-year-old actor has rarely been seen in public since the death of his co-star Matthew Perry from a drug overdose in October 2023, looking scruffy and unkempt.

With the memory of Perry’s tragic demise still raw in the public consciousness, many feared that LeBlanc would also “fall apart,” and it was reported that Friends castmates Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox regularly visited LeBlanc at his home and “keep an eye on kept on track’. it’.

On Friends, which aired from 1994 to 2004 and has continued to delight new audiences ever since, LeBlanc and Perry were inseparable as housemates Joey Tribbiani and Chandler Bing. Seated side by side in matching armchairs, playing foosball or recounting dating disasters, the pair embodied the carefree optimism of youth. They were the happy friends that every twentysomething viewer wanted to be.

That image has been shattered as the extent of Perry’s drug use and addiction, the demons he battled and how vulnerable he was to exploitation, came to light.

But LeBlanc is also a far cry from the endearingly dim and irritable character Joey he played on screen.

He once told an interviewer: ‘I’m much quieter and more reserved than my character in Friends. I just don’t feel like going out in front of an audience and doing a TV show. That’s not who I am.’

On another occasion he explained: ‘My favorite thing to do is not work. I like to be with my family or friends, cycling. I do my thing, go home and live my life.’

And having lost not only Perry in recent years, but others he was close to — including fellow Friends actor James Michael Taylor who played Gunther and died of prostate cancer in 2021 — it appears LeBlanc is making a conscious effort has done to protect his health and sanity.

In a move some are calling ‘quiet retirement’, the actor, who is worth £80million, is believed to have taken inspiration from Jack Nicholson who retired in 2010 after 55 years in the industry.

“He is financially stable and doesn’t really want to be in the spotlight anymore,” said one observer.

LeBlanc is fortunate not to be plagued by the addictions that destroyed Perry’s life – smoking seems to be his only vice – but he is well aware of the fickle nature of show business and the dangers it poses to those under its spell .

Immediately after Friends ended, he appeared in an eponymous spin-off, Joey, for two series from 2004–2006, and despite it making him a fortune, the experience left him exhausted.

Ten years after Joey ended, he told an interviewer, “For years I barely left the house. I was burned out. Most actors call their agents and say, “What’s going on?” I called mine and said, ‘Please lose my number for a few years.’

Away from the spotlight, LeBlanc and Perry’s friendship transcends their TV roles.

The couple even lived close to each other in the posh enclave of Pacific Palisades.

LeBlanc’s beautiful home has an impressive car collection that focuses on his beloved Porsches. Perry lived in a four-bedroom, four-bathroom house with ocean views on a hilltop that just sold for $8.55 million.

And when Perry died of a ketamine overdose in his hot tub on the night of October 28 last year, neighbor LeBlanc was the first of the Friends cast to pay tribute to him.

“Matthew. It is with a heavy heart that I say goodbye,” he wrote on Instagram. “The times we had together were honestly some of the favorite times 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. Lots of love.’

And as an aside that might have delighted fans of the ultimate on-screen bromance, he concluded with a light-hearted joke that could so easily have been written by a Friends screenwriter: “And I guess you’ll get the twenty bucks you you are guilty, hold’. me.’

That fateful day was just two years after the Friends cast reunited for a one-off show, watched by 5.3 million fans in Britain and many millions more worldwide. Although the group is perhaps best known for their Friends performances, the members have also built successful careers outside of that.

Aniston (who played Rachel Green in Friends) stars as TV presenter Alex Levy in the hit Apple TV series The Morning Show, while Cox (Monica Geller) has become an entrepreneur with her own high-end home care cleaning range.

Lisa Kudrow, who played the lovable Phoebe Buffay, is a producer on the American version of the reality TV show Who Do You Think You Are? and David Schwimmer (Ross Geller) stars as a depressed Hollywood screenwriter in the midst of an existential crisis in his new film Little Death.

LeBlanc, meanwhile, doesn’t seem to have any projects in the pipeline and seems to be at peace with that. It’s perhaps not such a surprising move in the career of the man who landed the life-changing role of lovable Joey at the age of 27, but never intended to have an acting career.

His father Paul, raised largely by his mother Patricia in Massachusetts, left the family when LeBlanc was a baby but came back into their lives when the actor was eight. Father and son have reportedly had a rocky relationship since then.

After high school, LeBlanc tried his hand at carpentry and studied a construction management course at a local university.

While still in his teens, he quit and went to Florida to become a model. But barrel-chested and only 6 feet tall, he wasn’t what the agencies were looking for, so he went to New York and took drama classes.

After small roles in film and TV, he was down to his last $11 when he landed the role of Joey in Friends in 1994. The series was a worldwide success throughout its ten series and continues to attract viewers.

They married British-born model Melissa McKnight in 2003 and their daughter Marina was born in February the following year, a few months before the final 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 his life a “dark time,” but the little girl eventually grew out of the condition.

The couple divorced in 2006, but remain co-parents to Marina.

It was then that LeBlanc seemed to start a pattern of prioritizing family life and adjusting his pace at work, something he still tries to live by.

He took his first extended break from acting after his Friends spin-off series Joey received lukewarm reviews and lasted only two series. It was supposed to last a year, but it took five years.

He said at the time: ‘Maybe I have a daughter, maybe that’s it, but life is too short to worry about your career. I don’t care as much as I used to.’

He was seduced back into the spotlight in 2011 as a fictionalized version of himself in the Hollywood satire series Episodes alongside British actors Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan, for which he won a Golden Globe.

That series only required him to work four months a year, and LeBlanc described his off months as a time when he was happy to be “his real self.”

He told reporters at the Television Critics Association that his daily routine involved making breakfast for his daughter, taking her to and from school and helping her with homework.

‘We spend time together, go on trips and do all kinds of things, so I feel really 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 program Top Gear. He was brought on board following the departure of presenter Jeremy Clarkson, becoming the first non-British star to present the show.

He presented four series before quitting, saying it had been a lot of 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 was a regular on Top Gear, died of cancer and LeBlanc is said to have been deeply affected – not least because Friends co-star Tyler died that same year.

Cars remain a passion for LeBlanc and this week he was spotted with Marina at a car showroom in Van Nuys, California, talking to a salesperson.

While it’s true that he likes to be home, he’s not a total recluse. He was recently spotted with friends at the famous Nobu hangout in Malibu and is known to have a circle of trusted friends both in California and in his home state of Massachusetts, even attending his high school reunion.

He had a long romance with American actress Andrea Anders, whom he met on the set of Joey in 2006. They were together for eight years before ending their relationship.

There was also a relationship with Top Gear producer Aurora Mulligan, but that ended a few years ago and there has apparently been no romance since their breakup.

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’.