Chandler Muriel Bing [unreliable source?] is a fictional character from the NBC sitcom Friends, portrayed by Matthew Perry. Chandler was born to Nora Tyler Bing, an erotic romance novelist, and Charles Bing, a gay female impersonator and star of a Las Vegas drag show called "Viva Las Gay-gas" as Helena Handbasket. Chandler is of Scottish and Swedish descent.[citation needed] He is an only child and is apparently from an affluent family.[citation needed] His parents announced their divorce to him over Thanksgiving dinner when Chandler was nine years old, an event which gave him trauma and now he refuses to celebrate the holiday in his adulthood and led him to develop his notorious sense of humor as a defense mechanism. It is revealed in season 1 that he went to an all-boys high school.