Matthew Perry is speaking out about the “scary” incident in which a Friends costar confronted him about his drinking.
Perry claims Jennifer Aniston was the one who reached out the most as his drinking spun out of control in a preview of his forthcoming interview with Diane Sawyer. Perry, who acknowledged using Methadone, Xanax, and a “whole quart of vodka” every day, in addition to 55 Vicodin, said Aniston informed him, “We know you’re drinking.”
“Yeah,” Perry confirmed. “Imagine how scary a moment that was. She was the one that reached out the most. I’m really grateful to her for that.”
Aniston stated in 2021 that she didn’t understand Perry’s “self-torture” while on Friends.
“I didn’t understand the level of anxiety and self-torture [that] was put on Matthew Perry, if he didn’t get that laugh, and the devastation that he felt,” Aniston said on the Today show. “[But it] makes a lot of sense.”
Perry also said that he was “in a coma and almost averted death” in the interview with Sawyer. The actor is opening up like never before in anticipation of the November 1 release of his memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing.
Perry also discussed his difficulties with booze and painkillers with People. Perry was 24 when he earned the renowned part of Chandler Bing, but he was already battling alcoholism. The issue became critical when he began abusing Vicodin and dropped to 128 pounds.
“I didn’t know how to stop,” he admitted. “If the police came over to my house and said, ‘If you drink tonight, we’re going to take you to jail,’ I’d start packing. I couldn’t stop because the disease and the addiction is progressive. So it gets worse and worse as you grow older.”
He also talked about his near-death experience a few years ago due to his drug fight.
Perry describes experiencing a gastrointestinal rupture at the age of 49 when his colon burst due to opiate addiction in the book. The actor struggled for two weeks, spent five months in the hospital, and had to use a colostomy bag for nine months.
“The doctors told my family that I had a two percent chance to live,” he told People. “I was put on a thing called an ECMO machine, which does all the breathing for your heart and your lungs. And that’s called a Hail Mary. No one survives that.”