Nearly five years after actor Luke Perry suffered a fatal stroke, Brian Austin Green is explaining why the injury resulting in his death might have been the better outcome for his friend.
“He passed away of complications from brain swelling and things that happened because of the physical stroke itself. There was absolutely a part of me that was really upset and disappointed, of course, that it was as serious [as] it was. ‘Cause people have strokes all the time. People don’t die from strokes all the time. And he was 52 years old at that point,” Green, 50, explained on the “Comfort Food with Kelly Rizzo” podcast.
“He was young. So normally, people go through strokes and then they recover. It takes years sometimes to … but they recover from them.”
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Brian Austin Green, left, believes that Luke Perry dying from his stroke injury might have been better than the arduous recovery he could have had to face had he survived. (Getty Images)
“There was a part of me with him, with the loss of him, where I felt like maybe that was the best thing to happen for him. ‘Cause Luke was very – Luke took pride in who he was. He was very quick-witted. He was very kind. He was very generous. And … to not have any of those, any of those things missing at all would have so severely affected him,” he suggested. “I think for recovery possibly taking 4 years. Or near there. It would have been really, really difficult for him.”
“To me he either had to be 100% or not. There was no middle ground,” Green added of his fellow “Beverly Hills, 90210” cast member.
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Brian Austin Green, left, and Luke Perry starred on “Beverly Hills, 90210” together. (Mikel Roberts/Sygma via Getty Images)
At the time of Perry’s death, Green had just battled a neurological condition of his own that left him with “stroke-like symptoms.” His recovery took nearly four and half years, which he said was mostly private.
“When I heard that he’d had a stroke. My first thought was, I just like went through this. I just went through, you know, all of the speech therapy, physical therapy, all the stuff you need to do. So, who better to help him through this than me?” he remembered of his initial thoughts. “And then he passed.”
Ian Ziering, Tori Spelling, Shannen Doherty, Brian Austin Green, Jason Priestley, Jennie Garth, Gabrielle Carteris and Luke Perry pose in a cast photo of “Beverly Hills, 90210” in 1991. (Mark Sennet/Getty Images)
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“To me, he was the one that was going to outlive all of us,” Green continued. “When he passed, I was incredibly sad. Incredibly shocked … He was a brother for me. Literally, I had known him before we started doing ‘90210.’ And he’s somebody that I really took pride in like mirroring my life after, because he just so inspired me.”
“I am so grateful that I had the time with him that I had. And I had the life with him that I had. And I had the true knowing and loving with him that I had. On both sides. I am so incredibly lucky that he loved me the way that he did,” he said of their close friendship.
Luke Perry passed away in 2019 after suffering from two strokes. (Ron Davis/Getty Images)
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“Honestly, in grieving, you’re looking for those silver lining things,” Green told Rizzo, who lost her husband Bob Saget unexpectedly from a head injury. “It’s one of the things I think that makes it so individual.”
“It’s like you have to find the things that bring comfort to you in getting through a horrible situation,” he said of grieving Perry. “If that thinking helps you through the process at all, then that’s what you think. And some people may be like, ‘Oh, but that’s such a morbid view’ and ‘It would have been better to have him in any state.’”
“And it’s like, ‘OK, then you feel that. That’s fine. You do you.'”
