RIP To 'Friends' Icon James Michael Tyler aka Gunther

Decider- Actor James Michael Tyler, who’s best known for playing Gunther on Friends, died Sunday of a stage 4 prostate cancer. He was 59.

Tyler’s death was confirmed to the BBC by his manager, who said the actor passed away peacefully in his Los Angeles home. “The world knew him as Gunther (the seventh Friend)… but Michael’s loved ones knew him as an actor, musician, cancer-awareness advocate, and loving husband. If you met him once you made a friend for life,” the actor’s manager said in a statement.

While he’s best-remembered for playing Friends‘ Central Perk coffee shop manager, Tyler also appeared in Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Scrubs, and other TV shows and movies.

RIP To James Michael Tyler. This just absolutely sucks to see because #1 fuck cancer and #2 it's practically impossible to be a Friends fan and not smile whenever you see James Michael Tyler walk onto the screen. Gunther's quite literally an all-time television character after Mr. Tyler had an amazing rise from simply an extra on the show to being noticed by the show runners there and given a speaking part which wound up to him getting 150 appearances on the show. 150! Amazing!

Sadly us Friends fans saw this coming after he chose to do the Friends reunion on zoom to not put a damper on the show in a very selfless move.

Recently, the actor participated in HBO Max‘s Friends: The Reunion special via video conference. “It was bittersweet, honestly. I was happy to be included,” Tyler told Today in June. “It was my decision not to be a part of that physically and make an appearance on Zoom… because I didn’t wanna bring a downer on it, you know? I didn’t want to be like, ‘Oh, and by the way, Gunther has cancer.'”

I will now leave you with a wonderful post from Jennifer Aniston and a hilarious scene from the final episode where Gunther FINALLY tells Rachel he's in love with her. RIP James Michael Tyler & fuck cancer.