It’s been nearly two years since Matthew Perry was found dead at his home. The Friends star, who had endured many struggles, passed away at the age of 54, leaving his friends, colleagues, and fans devastated. Several cast members of the iconic series are still grappling with the loss, and as Lisa Kudrow recently revealed in an interview, the pain was deepened when she discovered a hidden message in a gift Perry had given her, only after his passing.
Kudrow appeared on The Drew Barrymore Show to discuss her new comedy series Clean Slate. During the conversation, she shared a story about an item she had taken from the set of Friends—a common practice in Hollywood. More notably, at the end of the series in 2004, Perry had gifted her a cookie jar—the very one featured on the show. It was his way of marking the final episode, but the jar contained a secret that Kudrow only recently uncovered.
"I only just found this little message he left for me in the jar. I hadn’t opened it or looked inside until now. But yeah, the message was there. He left it for me, and I had forgotten all about it," Kudrow recalled.
The message is likely something very personal, as Kudrow did not reveal its contents. She only cryptically remarked that “timing is everything.” The cookie jar in question is a distinctive prop that can be spotted in the The One with the Cooking Class episode from season eight. It looks like a clock, and during one scene, Kudrow’s character Phoebe mistakenly uses it as a timepiece.
On set, the confusion led to an amusing moment. Phoebe tells Chandler she’s in a hurry, but Kudrow, lacking a watch in the scene, improvised by pointing to the jar on the fridge, which resembles a clock. This prompted Perry to jokingly ask her afterward, “Did you seriously just point to that cookie jar and act like it was a clock when you said, ‘Look at the time?’”
This funny and heartfelt moment explains why Kudrow received the prop as a gift from Perry. It’s likely that the "secret message" inside also references or commemorates this humorous incident.
