The great, the unhealthy and the ugly. Matthew Perry didn’t maintain again in his Associates, Lovers and the Large Horrible Factor memoir — recalling his high-profile romances, dependancy woes and Associates highs and lows.
“Individuals could be shocked to know that I’ve largely been sober since 2001,” he wrote within the e book, which hits cabinets on Tuesday, November 1. “Save for about sixty or seventy little mishaps over time.”
The Odd Couple alum revealed that he has been battling medication and alcohol dependancy for many years. In reality, he was given phenobarbital when he was a child to cease his colicky cries, a barbiturate he would later flip to throughout his decrease factors.
“When these mishaps happen, if you wish to be sober, which I all the time did, you’d be given medication that will help you alongside,” he defined. “What drug might you ask? You guessed it: phenobarbital!”
In 1997, Perry acquired hooked on Vicodin after a jet snowboarding accident throughout a movie shoot. He later turned hooked on OxyContin after surgical procedure for a colon explosion, which nearly price him his life.
“It was nearly sure at that time that I used to be going to die. Was I unfortunate that my colon exploded? Or was I fortunate that it occurred within the one room in Southern California the place they might do one thing about it?” the previous Go On star wrote of the scary expertise. “Both manner, I now confronted a seven-hour surgical procedure, which not less than gave all my family members ample time to race to the hospital. As they arrived they have been every instructed, ‘Matthew has a two % likelihood of creating it by means of the evening.’ Everybody was so wrought with emotion that some crumbled to the bottom proper there within the hospital foyer. I should stay out the remainder of my days understanding that my mom and others heard these phrases.”
His battle to remain sober — in addition to his private demons — additionally plagued his love life, together with his short-lived relationship with Julia Roberts.
“[Friends co-creator] Marta Kauffman approached me and stated that I ought to most likely ship flowers to Julia Roberts. You imply the biggest-star-in-the-universe Julia Roberts? ‘Certain, nice, why?’ I stated,” Perry wrote whereas recalling how the romance started. “Turned out Julia had been supplied the submit–Tremendous Bowl episode in season 2 and he or she would solely do the present if she may very well be in my story line. Let me say that once more—she would solely do the present if she may very well be in my story line. (Was I having a superb yr or what?).”
Whereas the 2 did date forward of Roberts’ look on Associates in 1996, by April of that yr, Perry introduced he was single.
“Courting Julia Roberts had been an excessive amount of for me. I had been always sure that she was going to interrupt up with me — why would she not? I used to be not sufficient; I may by no means be sufficient; I used to be damaged, bent, unlovable,” the Studio 60 on the Sundown Strip alum confessed in his e book. “So as an alternative of dealing with the inevitable agony of dropping her, I broke up with the attractive and sensible Julia Roberts. She may need thought-about herself slumming it with a TV man, and TV man was now breaking apart together with her.”
Perry’s dependancy additionally influenced his profession happiness, particularly in the course of the late ‘90s and early 2000s when he was enjoying Chandler Bing on Associates.
“Quick-forward to the hiatus between seasons 5 and 6 of Associates and I discovered myself filming The Complete 9 Yards, and positive sufficient, when it got here out in early 2000, I had the primary TV present and the primary film. Me? I used to be taking so many drugs that I couldn’t go away my bed room,” he recalled. “So, in a second if you’d suppose Matthew Perry could be celebrating and being the toast of the city, I used to be simply dealing with drug sellers and dwelling in darkish rooms and distress.”
After spending “upward of $7 million attempting to get sober,” Perry has come out the opposite facet and is clear. “I’ve been to 6 thousand AA conferences. (Not an exaggeration, extra an informed guess.) I’ve been to rehab fifteen instances,” he revealed. “I’ve been in a psychological establishment, gone to remedy twice per week for thirty years, been to loss of life’s door.”
Scroll right down to see Perry’s largest bombshells and revelations from Associates, Lovers and the Large Horrible Factor:
