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Matthew Perry has laid bare for the first time his struggles with opioids, revealing his addiction left him comatose for several weeks after overusing opioids.
In a candid new interview, the Friends star has shared how his drug and alcohol addiction nearly cost him his life, a stark contrast to the sarcastic Chandler Bing where fans know him best.
For Matthew, this is the latest revelation after decades of personal struggles, with the actor even leaving fans fearing for his health following his appearance in the much-anticipated Friends reunion in 2021.

Candid:Â Matthew Perry has laid bare for the first time his struggles with opioids, revealing his addiction left him comatose for several weeks after overusing opioids (pictured last month)
After suffering from a gastrointestinal perforation, Matthew said he had to use a colostomy bag for nine months, has now had 14 surgeries on his stomach in total and been to rehab 15 times.Â
Speaking to PEOPLE, Matthew said: ‘I wanted to share when I was safe from going into the dark side of everything again.Â
‘I had to wait until I was pretty safely sober — and away from the active disease of alcoholism and addiction — to write it all down. And the main thing was, I was pretty certain that it would help people.’Â

Insight:Â In a candid interview , the Friends star has shared how his drug and alcohol addiction nearly cost him his life, a stark contrast to the Chandler Bing where fans know him best
He said he could handle it but he was ‘entrenched in a lot of trouble’ by the time he was 34. He said there were years during that time in which he was sober and in fact, he was sober throughout the whole of season nine, the year he got nominated for Best Actor.Â
At one point during his Friends career, he admits he was taking 55 Vicodin a day and was down to 128 pounds but yet he ‘didn’t know how to stop.’Â
He said the disease has got worse and worse and progressive and he’s got older and noted his Friends cast mates ‘were understanding, and they were patient.’
A constant battle, Matthew says: ‘I’m pretty healthy now’. He is choosing not to say how long he has been sober for but is ‘counting each day.’
Born in Massachusetts and raised north of the border in Canada‘s capital Ottawa, Matthew was the focus of a series of headlines during much of his time on Friends, stemming largely from his hard-fought battle with drug addiction.Â

Open: As he publishes his new memoir, Matthew has detailed his harrowing battles with addiction, and how he was left in a coma for weeks, in a tell-all interview with PEOPLE

Keeping a low-profile: Matthew has stayed under the radar in recent years. He caused concern in 2019 when he looked dishevelled in his first sighting for almost two yearsÂ
Back in 1997, when his NBC sitcom was already flying high as a bona fide hit, the star was injured in a jet-ski accident – an already harrowing incident that led to the genesis of a far darker force as he became dependent on powerful painkiller Vicodin.
Perry has been open about his past struggles with addiction, previously telling People things got ‘out of control and very unhealthy’ after the accident.
Matthew famously told the New York Times in 2002, one year after getting sober: ‘When [fame] happens, it’s kind of like Disneyland for a while.Â
‘For me it lasted about eight months, this feeling of “I’ve made it, I’m thrilled, there’s no problem in the world”.Â
He told the Hollywood Reporter in 2015: ‘I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in my life. I learned a lot from my failures.
‘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.”‘Â

Tough time: He previously said his struggles with alcohol began when he first landed his role on Friends, and at one point he was taking up to 55 Vicodin a dayÂ
‘And then you realise that it doesn’t accomplish anything, it’s certainly not filling any holes in your life. I didn’t get sober because I felt like it. I got sober because I was worried I was going to die the next day.’
‘It’s no accident that Chandler is a guy who is trying to deter his own human emotional feelings with laughter. That’s what I did for years. I’ve tried to palm myself off as being a jokester, kind of like hanging out with me is kind of like a vacation. But that could only take me so far.’
Matthew went onto do a third stint in rehab in May 2011, when a representative for the star said it was to prevent a relapse.
Matthew said in a statement in 2011: ‘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.’Â
He went onto tell People in 2013: ‘I couldn’t stop. Eventually things got so bad that I couldn’t hide it, and then everybody knew.’Â
Addiction left the screen star in a worrying state, with many of the years he should have been celebrating now lost memories, as he told BBC Radio 2 in 2016.
‘I don’t remember three years of [the show],’ he said. ‘Somewhere between seasons three and six… I was a little out of it.’Â
The actor, who checked himself into rehab during his time on Friends once in 1997 and again in 2001, told the Hollywood Reporter in 2015: ‘I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in my life. I learned a lot from my failures.
![Under the radar: He said in 2016 - left - I don’t remember three years of [the show],' he said. 'Somewhere between Seasons 3 and 6 … I was a little out of it.'](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/10/19/14/63633419-11332007-Under_the_radar_He_said_in_2016_left_I_don_t_remember_three_year-a-6_1666187983209.jpg)

Under the radar: He said in 2016 – left – I don’t remember three years of [Friends] ‘Somewhere between Seasons 3 and 6 … I was a little out of it (pictured right in 2017)
‘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.”‘Â
Perry reunited with his Friends co-stars Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer, and Matt LeBlanc for the hotly-anticipated show reunion in 2021, and during the show he detailed the struggles he was facing at the time.
A teaser from the one-off episode showed Perry being comforted by Aniston, 52, as he welled up, before later cutting to scenes of the actor reminiscing about his time on the show. Â
In the clip, Perry’s on-screen wife Cox, 56, states:Â ‘It was an incredible time. We became best friends’, to which Perry confesses: ‘Yep, I’m going to cry now.’

Worrying: During the Friends reunion last year, Matthew sparked concern among fans when he appeared to slur his speechÂ
Dropping his head down and wrapping his arms around his body, Perry looks solemn as Jennifer leaned over to comfort him.
Season six, episode 14 of Friends was entitled The One Where Chandler Can’t Cry and aired back in February 2000.Â
When asked if he ever took anything from set as a souvenir, he admitted:Â ‘I stole the cookie jar that had the clock on it’ with a heavy ‘sh’ sound at the start of ‘stole.’
Though fans were left delighted by the teaser, there were also concerns after Perry appeared to slur his speech in a promo for the upcoming reunion special.Â

Wow: In 2020, the star put his Malibu beach house on the market for $14.95 million (pictured), while also selling an LA penthouse. He now lives in a $6 million cottage in Pacific Palisades
The actor stammered and stared in the clip, even slurring together his words at one point.
‘Just saw People interview and can’t believe how Matthew Perry looks like… seriously it breaks my heart,’ one fan wrote on Twitter.
‘It pains me to see Matthew Perry like this, he just seems off, gazing at the void, speaking slowly,’ wrote another.
‘Hate to say it, but I’m sad and scared like hell for Matthew Perry,’ a third added. ‘Damn, Matthew Perry in those PEOPLE Friends interviews.’

Icon: Matthew rose to fame through his role as Chandler on Friends, and among his 15 stints in rehab, two came while he still starred in the beloved sitcom
Another tweeted: ‘Just watched @people exclusive interview clip of Friends casts and the time hasn’t been kind. I hope Matthew Perry is okay. Damn how much I love them.’Â
One wrote: ‘Let’s not use the friends reunion to make fun of the way matthew perry looks these days. people age, funnily enough.
‘Matthew has been through A LOT since friends wrapped up in 2004. be respectful instead of judgmental. hard block me rn if you think making fun of him is funny.’
Despite having multi-million dollar net worth, the star’s life mirrored that of countless everyday people around the globe as he grappled with his demons and combated the resulting dramatically fluctuating weight.
He has likely sought solace within the towering walls of the many palatial homes he has snapped up across the palm tree-lined hills of Los Angeles over the years.

Series: Between 2006 and 2007, Matthew continued to showcase his acting chops when he joined the cast of Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip as Matt Albie
Perry’s $1 million-per-episode Friends pay day afforded him a sky-scraping penthouse in the City of Angels, which placed on the market for an eye-watering $27 million over the summer, having dropped the asking price from $35 million.
His luxury property clearance sale also included the screen star bringing his Malibu beach house to market for $14.95 million during the same period.
As for where he currently lives? In 2020, purchased himself comparatively humble $6 million cottage in the tony neighbourhood of Pacific Palisades.Â
Post-Friends, Perry, the son of American actor and former model John Bennett Perry and Canadian journalist Suzanne Marie Morrison has been able to sustain his lifestyle by keeping himself busy with a slew of projects, to varying degrees of success.

Short-lived: Perry portrayed a middle-aged man going through an identity crisis in the ABC sitcom Mr. Sunshine. Debuting in early 2011, the series was cancelled after just nine episodes
In 2007, he received Emmy and Golden Globe Award nominations for his critically acclaimed turn in the titular role of TNT movie, The Ron Clark Story, about a small-town teacher to relocates to educate the toughest class in the US.
Between 2006 and 2007, he continued to showcase his acting chops when he joined the cast of Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip as Matt Albie, a writer-director character based on the show’s creator and executive producer Aaron Sorkin.
Other TV and movie roles followed, with the actor also treading the board of London, when he starred in David Mamet’s Sexual Perversity In Chicago in the West End.
However, replicating the success of Friends alluded him: Perry was the focus of much fanfare when it was announced that he was set to portray a middle-aged man going through an identity crisis in the ABC sitcom Mr. Sunshine.
A sign of just how brutal the decision-making is in the revenue-hungry TV landscape, the series was cancelled after just nine episodes in early 2011.


Could this BE more embarrassing? The engaged Friends star was outed for sending a girl, 19, cringe-worthy messages after matching on celeb dating app Raya in 2021
His NBC pilot for Go On failed to fare much better. The show, which saw him portraying a sportscaster trying to move on from the death of his wife, premiered in 2012 but was cancelled the following year at the conclusion of the first season.
Among his many TV roles was also a stint on British TV in the 2014 one-off The Dog Thrower, as well as portraying the late Ted Kennedy in the 2017 miniseries The Kennedys: After Camelot.
Perry last starred in a movie in 2009’s 17 Again opposite Zac Efron. He was also due to make a cameo in last-year’s star-studded comedy Don’t Look Up, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence.
However, Matthew’s short scene, which was set to be a political rally alongside Jonah Hill, was cut from the final version on the film when it was released on Netflix.Â
Perry also faced some embarrassment after a match from the dating app Raya leaked a video message sent by the star.
The Friends actor allegedly asked the 19-year-old girl, ‘Am I as old as your dad?’ during a flirty exchange that was leaked earlier this month.Â
Perry, who is currently engaged to fiancée Molly Hurwitz, 29, can be seen in a video posted on Thursday flirting with TikTok user @kittynichole – real name Kate Haralson – who claims they matched on the membership-only dating service in May last year.
Haralson, now 20, shared the footage of herself with the caption: ‘When you match w Matthew Perry as a joke on a dating app and he facetimes you and plays 20 questions with you.’
In the 16-second video, Perry is seen smiling as he asks his potential date, ‘Do you always play with your hair this much?’ to which she responds, giggling: ‘I guess so.’Â

Now THIS is a match: Perry got engaged to fiancée Molly Hurwitz in November 2020, having started dating in 2018 (but they split in June 2021)
Haralson, a personal assistant who says she was 19 when Perry first contacted her, told PageSix on Thursday that she wanted to show how older men in Hollywood are ‘taking advantage’ of younger women on dating apps.Â
‘A lot of people were saying I’m a bully and mean for posting this, and it made me feel kind of bad, but at the same time, I feel like a lot of guys in Hollywood are talking to all these young girls and it’s something that I think a lot of people should be aware of,’ she told the outlet.
Haralson claims the FaceTime exchange happened in May last year, which is when Perry is said to have briefly split with his current fiancée Hurwitz, who he had been dating since 2018.
The Los Angeles-based PA said she had matched with other celebrities before but wouldn’t ‘ever talk to older guys’ though she thought talking to the Friends actor ‘would be funny.’Â
The exchange was believed to have been filmed six months before he announced his engagement to literary manager Hurwitz. Â
‘I decided to get engaged,’ the TV icon announced in People magazine on Thanksgiving after proposing. ‘Luckily, I happened to be dating the greatest woman on the face of the planet at this time.’
This will mark the first marriage for Perry, who is famous for playing loveable and sarcastic Chandler Bing in Friends. However, he has had several highly publicized romances with notable names.
Perry briefly dated Baywatch star Yasmine Bleeth in 1995 and then moved on to Oscar winner Julia Roberts from 1995 to 1996. He has also dated Neve Campbell, Heather Graham and Maeve Quinlan.Â
His longest relationship was with actress Lizzy Caplan from 2006 until 2012.Â
Perry was also engaged to Kayti Edwards, who previously claimed he had her score drugs for him while she was pregnant – during their brief romantic relationship in the early Noughties.
In December last year, Kayti alleged in The Sun that when he was in the depths of his addiction he would take 80 Vicodin in one day.


Exes; Matthew and Scream star Neve Campbell struck up a romance on the Three To Tango set in 1998 (pictured left that year) while Matthew and former fashion student Rachel Dunn had a 14 year age gap but dated for two years from 2003-2005 (pictured right 2004)
She claimed that in 2011 when their relationship was platonic and she was five months pregnant he would pay her thousands of dollars to procure drugs for him.
Kayti alleged that he would ‘guilt trip’ her into going on the drug runs by offering to ‘go there myself and walk downtown,’ prompting her to pick up the slack instead in order to prevent him ‘driving’ or ‘wandering around the streets.’
However she also praised him as ‘funny’ and ‘easy-going,’ expressing her joy that he has gone on the wagon and settled down with Molly.Â
In October 2022, Matthew gave a tell-all interview to PEOPLE detailing his struggles with drug addiction for the first time, revealing that his overuse of opioids left in a coma for several weeks.
The star revealed he was given just a two per cent chance of survival after an opioid addiction caused his colon to burst when he was aged 49, leaving him in a coma for two weeks and spending months in hospital – a fact which his legions of fans were unaware of.
After suffering from a gastrointestinal perforation, Matthew said he had to use a colostomy bag for nine months, has now had 14 surgeries on his stomach in total and been to rehab 15 times in a bid to get clean.Â
When he was first admitted to the hospital, he said: ‘the doctors told my family that I had a 2 percent chance to live. 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.’
‘I had to wait until I was pretty safely sober — and away from the active disease of alcoholism and addiction — to write it all down. And the main thing was, I was pretty certain that it would help people.’
Talking about his starring role on Friends at aged 24, his alcohol addiction was starting to surface.
He said he could handle it but he was ‘entrenched in a lot of trouble’ by the time he was 34.Â
He said there were years during that time in which he was sober and in fact, he was sober throughout the whole of season nine, the year he got nominated for Best Actor.Â
At one point during his Friends career, he admits he was taking 55 Vicodin a day and was down to 128 pounds but yet he ‘didn’t know how to stop.’Â
He said the disease has got worse and worse and progressive and he’s got older and noted his Friends cast mates ‘were understanding, and they were patient.’
A constant battle, Matthew says: ‘I’m pretty healthy now’. He is choosing not to say how long he has been sober for but is ‘counting each day.’Â
His stomach is covered in scars from his 14 surgeries and said they serve as a reminder to stay sober.Â
He said his therapist has told him that he may have to have a colostomy bag for the rest of his life if he takes drugs again, which helps him to avoid relapsing.Â

Romance: Before meeting Molly, his longest relationship was with actress Lizzy Caplan from 2006 until 2012. Pictured together in September 2011
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