The death of Matthew Perry in the closing months of last year was met with widespread grief and an outpouring of tributes from his legion of fans and followers around the world.

The late actor made his name on the wildly successful show Friends, and remained a popular figure in the years following, in spite of his well-documented troubles with addiction and alcohol abuse.

However new rumors have surfaced that may tarnish Perry’s legacy if proven to be true, insisting that he had “assaulted women”, including his ex-fiancée, and lied about his sobriety.

The passing of Matthew Perry predictably made headlines around the world. The actor, aged 54 when he died, was found dead of an apparent drowning in a hot tub at his home in LA on October 28, 2023, prompting an outpour of grief from the entertainment industry and beyond.

Perry, who shot to worldwide fame thanks to his portrayal of Chandler Bing in the massively successful sitcom Friends, was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Los Angeles in early November – his Friends co-stars were all in attendance.

The majority of tributes for Perry focused on his long-running battle with substance abuse. The Fools Rush In star had spoken candidly on his own issues over the years, but insisted that he was clean in the 18 months leading up to his death.

An initial toxicology report confirmed that there was no trace of drugs such as fentanyl or meth in the actor’s body at the time of his death. His passing was later ruled an accident from the acute effects of ketamine, though, with Perry said to have had large amounts of the drug – a powerful anesthetic used in hospitals – in his system.

Just a year prior to his death, Perry released his memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, during which he documented his decades-long fight with addiction. One individual who features in the book is a woman named Morgan Moses, who Perry referenced under the pseudonym Erin.

Perry claimed Moses was his “best friend”, crediting her with saving his life after his colon burst.

Yet explosive new claims made by a source to the Daily Mail infer that the picture fans had of Perry might not have been entirely correct.

“Morgan was no longer working with Matthew,” said insider told the Mail.

“He had a horrible breakdown and in the heat of the moment he could not control his emotions. He had a fear that he was going to be abandoned.

“He shoved Morgan into a wall and threw her onto a bed. She left. The man those close to him knew and the man that the world saw were two very different people.”

The source also claimed that Morgan had stopped working as Matthew’s sober companion a year before the memoir was published (sometime in 2021).

Not only that, but the same source also alleged that Perry had been involved in a bitter fight with ex-fiancée Molly Hurwitz, and that it had led to the end of their relationship last February.

The fight is said to have been started when Hurwitz confronted Perry after finding a romantic gift he had bought for someone he met on a dating app.

“He threw a coffee table at her and told her that she was crazy. He hated that she dumped him and he had terrible abandonment issues,” the Mail’s source claimed.