It’s been nearly two years since Matthew Perry passed away at age 54, but his legacy lives on, not just through the infinitely rewatchable TV series Friends, but through the stories of those who crossed paths with him over the years. Sex and the City star Kristin Davis revealed she was once “set up” with Perry at the height of his fame, and she had positive memories of how “happy” he was.
Kristin Davis — aka Charlotte on the SATC spinoff And Just Like That..., whose series finale just aired on the 2025 TV schedule — recalled on an episode of her Are You a Charlotte? podcast a date she had with the Friends star at a dinner party nearly 30 years ago. She said:
So I had been set up by a really nice lawyer who I still know. He’s not my lawyer, but he’s a really nice lawyer, and I’ve been set up with Matthew Perry. This is ’98, ’99, ’97 maybe? I feel like it was between Melrose Place, which I did before [Sex and the City]. It was at a house, it was a dinner party. It was so low-key, I thought.
Kristin Davis said she remembers bringing flowers to the party and seeing “a bunch of Hollywood people,” though she didn’t remember anyone specifically other than Matthew Perry and her lawyer friend. She went on to give her impression of the man known for executing Chandler Bing’s hilarious lines on Friends. Davis continued:
Matthew’s lovely. He sits next to me, and he’s talking about how thrilled he is, how happy they are on the set at Friends. He was doing a film with … Salma Hayek out in the desert, right? So he would film at Friends and then they’d put him in a car and drive him out to the desert and they’d film all night and then he’d drive back. It was very hard, right?
It sounds like juggling the filming schedules of Friends and 1997’s Fools Rush In was pretty intense, but Kristin Davis said Matthew Perry seemed really pleased with the way his career was going. Unfortunately, that wasn’t something she could necessarily relate to. She continued:
I was like, ‘Wow, he’s so happy!’ I had been around Melrose and it wasn’t the happiest place, in a way, you know? It was, like, stressy. There were 15 series regulars, everyone had the feeling they might get cut. It was kind of competitive and stressy, you know? So I was like, ‘Wow that’s amazing, you’re so happy!’
One has to wonder if Kristin Davis was a bit jealous of the Friends cast, as she, too, had auditioned for the part of Monica (who ended up marrying Matthew Perry’s Chandler). Davis was also allegedly present when Courteney Cox decided to buy a Porsche to celebrate getting the role.
The Sex and the City star did end up guest-starring on Friends in one Season 7 episode that aired in 2000. She played Erin, who bonded with Rachel and Phoebe after what was supposed to be a one-night stand with Joey.
All 10 seasons of Friends are available to stream with an HBO Max subscription, and you can see Kristin Davis on the divisive series finale of And Just Like That… — which received abysmal reviews from critics. That series is also available on HBO Max.
