The creator of the hit sitcom, Friends, Marta Kauffman, recently addressed some of the severe struggles that Matthew Perry faced with sobriety throughout filming the show.
The creator of the hit sitcom, Friends, Marta Kauffman, recently addressed some of the severe struggles that Matthew Perry faced with sobriety throughout filming the show.
While he may have appeared to be a quirky '90s heartthrob at the height of his career, he was actually spending a lot of time in and out of rehab.
"I think the answer is, I don’t remember three years of it,” he told BBC Radio.
He eventually became dependent on painkillers.
“It wasn’t my intention to have a problem with it,” he said. “But from the start I liked how it made me feel, and I wanted to get more."
In hindsight, it's clear that Matthew's weight was significantly fluctuating from season to season.
“I returned to my original birth weight,” he joked.
Not long after getting out of rehab, he relapsed and ended up spending two weeks in the hospital for pancreatitis, caused by alcohol abuse, he said.
He confessed to frequently showing up to work drunk or brutally hungover — unable to function normally, which ultimately, led to him finally asking his parents for help.
He spent two and a half months back in rehab, learning “that a happy life is possible without alcohol or drugs.”
“I’m making plans to go away for a month to focus on my sobriety and to continue my life in recovery. Please enjoy making fun of me on the World Wide Web," he said at the time.
"But the best thing about me is that if an alcoholic comes up to me and says, ‘Will you help me stop drinking?’ I will say, ‘Yes. I know how to do that'."
"Because I was on a TV show that 30 million people were watching."
"So I take advantage of that from time to time.”
He did make a surprise appearance, however, on Jennifer Aniston's brand new Instagram profile in a Friends reunion photo.
“Guess who I had lunch with today,” she captioned the photo. “I KNOW!! Could I BE any happier? #realfriends.”
She revealed that she and the rest of the cast were aware of what he was going through and did everything they could to support him.
“[We were] protective and, hopefully, supportive," she added.