'Friends' star Matthew Perry's demise has left everyone in a state of shock. Matthew, 54, died on October 28 of apparent drowning at his Pacific Palisades home in LA. As per reports, there was no clear evidence of foul play, and the investigation is currently underway for the cause of death.
In 1994, Perry got the role of Chandler Bing on the sitcom 'Friends' which made him the most endearing character of the show. He also earned an Emmy nod for his work in 2002.
It was a cult show also co-starring Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer. In 2021, the entire cast reunited on an HBO Max special, where they relived the memories of the show by spending quality time together after years.
In 2022, in his memoir, 'Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing', Matthew Perry made some shocking revelations. Have a look.
Matthew Perry on his near-death experience
The 'Friends' actor revealed he experienced death closely in 2018 when he had colon surgery. He said his colon "exploded" due to the overuse of opioids and he spent two weeks in a coma and five months in a hospital. He also used a colostomy bag for nine months, which he noted broke at least 55 times.
He said, "I had been on opiates, and off opiates, and back on different opiates for so long that I suffered from a situation that only a subset of the population gets," Perry wrote of his organ exploding, sharing he had 14 follow-up surgeries after the initial seven-hour emergency procedure. "Opiates cause constipation. It's kind of poetic. I was so full of shit it almost killed me."
His family and friends were told, "'Matthew has a two percent chance of making it through the night.' I will have to live out the rest of my days knowing that my mother and others heard those words."
When his heart stopped
In 2020, when he was in a Switzerland-based treatment centre, the actor admitted he falsified symptoms to receive a prescription for hydrocodone. "I was given the shot at eleven a.m.," Perry wrote. "I woke up 11 hours later in a different hospital. Apparently, the propofol had stopped my heart. For five minutes,'' he said.
He was supposed to star in Adam McKay's Netflix film 'Don't Look Up', which starred Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence and Meryl Streep. But due to a medical scare, he had to exit the movie.
Perry said, "Nothing had been beating. I was told that some beefy Swiss guy really didn't want the guy from Friends dying on his table and did CPR on me for the full five minutes, beating and pounding my chest. If I hadn't been on Friends, would he have stopped at three minutes? Did Friends save my life again?"
This caused him eight broken ribs and the actor was in "too much pain" to continue shooting for the film.
Sobriety became the most important thing in his life
Perry revealed, "I have spent upward of $7 million trying to get sober. I have been to six thousand AA meetings. (Not an exaggeration, more an educated guess.) I've been to rehab fifteen times. I've been in a mental institution, gone to therapy twice a week for thirty years, been to death's door."
He also wrote, "Sobriety had now become the most important thing in my life. Because I learned that if you put anything in front of sobriety, you will lose that 'anything' anyway if you drink."
When Perry was diagnosed with pancreatitis
In 2000, while shooting for 'Friends', Perry spent 30 days in the hospital being "fed fluids through an IV" due to his excessive drinking that caused him pancreatitis. ''Pancreatitis at the age of thirty was unheard of. Yay for me! Another record,'' said Perry.
He was given Dilaudid, an opioid while recovering in the hospital. He said, "It was my new favorite drug and I would have stayed in that hospital for a hundred days if they kept administrating it."
Perry revealed losing virginity to Tricia Leigh Fisher
In his memoir, Perry spoke about many of his high-profile relationships, including his romance with Tricia Leigh Fisher when he was 18. He revealed he lost his virginity to her.
He wrote, "That night, by the dint of a miraculous universe and the ministrations of a beautiful young woman who deserved better, I finally first misplaced my virginity then lost it altogether''.
He wrote making out with Gwyneth Paltrow in a closet
Matthew also revealed that he once made out with actress Gwyneth Paltrow in a broom cupboard during a party in Williamstown, Massachusetts. He added, "We were both still unknown enough that it didn't make it to the tabloids''.
Matthew wrote about his private romance with Lizzy Caplan
He also wrote about his romance with his longtime girlfriend Lizzy Caplan. Though he didn't her name, he said that he dated her for six years and his relationship with Caplan started out as "friends with benefits" and then it bloomed into love and he almost asked her to marry him.
He recalled, "I didn't say it. All my fears reared up like a snake, the snake I feared was coming to get me the year before I'd met her, the time when I'd seen God but managed to learn not enough from him."
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His short-term romance with Julia Roberts
Perry opened up about their shortlived romance when Julia Roberts starred as a guest star in a 1996 episode of 'Friends'.
They only dated for two months, and Perry even met the actress' parents for the first time when he joined her family trip to New Mexico to celebrate the New Year.
The actor said, "We jumped in this big blue truck and drove up a mountain, snow swirling around. Eventually, we reached a mountaintop, and for a moment the weather cleared, and we could see New Mexico and beyond, all the way back to Canada. As we sat there, she made me feel like the king of the world. A gentle snow was falling, and with that, 1996 began."
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The '17 Again' actor added, "I had been constantly certain that she was going to break up with me. Why would she not? I was not enough; I could never be enough; I was broken, bent, unlovable. So instead of facing the inevitable agony of losing her, I broke up with the beautiful and brilliant Julia Roberts."
