Julia Roberts Speaks Out on Matthew Perry

Julia Roberts, who dated Matthew Perry in the 1990s, spoke for the first time publicly about the comedian's death at age 54. "The sudden passing of anybody so young is heartbreaking," Roberts said during an interview on Entertainment Tonight. "I think that, you know, it just helps all of us just appreciate what we have and to keep going in a positive way as best we can." Though the pair went out for just three months, their relationship loomed large in tabloid media at the time, and Perry wrote about it warmly in his memoir Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing.

Their relationship took place around the time Roberts guest starred on Friends, an experience she also recalled during her ET interview. "They were all so welcoming to me as just a kind of a one-off character and it was a really fun time," she said, noting she has "all good thoughts and feelings" about the experience. Roberts stars in the new thriller Leave the World Behind, which includes a number of Friends references. "It's beautiful he could sort of be honored in that way," her co-star, Mahershala Ali, tells ET. "It's kinda nice that it has a little space in there." (More Julia Roberts stories.)