Incredibly Heartbreaking Reason Matthew Perry Refuses to Watch Friends
Many Hollywood stars don't watch their own works, but none have a more valid reason for that than Matthew Perry.
In 2022, our favorite funny guy released his memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, which focused on the battle with addiction that he was fighting behind the scenes of the hit sitcom.
A little down the road, the Friends star sat down for an interview with CBC to go into further detail about his book and his life experiences.
It was right then and there that Matthew answered the question that had been bugging the fans for years – why does the actor refuse to watch the thing that launched his career?
It is common knowledge that Perry's struggle with drugs caused him to forget entire episodes and seasons of Friends (all the more reason to watch the show, right?), but now we finally understand why he never saw the series.
Matthew attributes his lack of interest in binging the show to his substance abuse.
He recalls "taking 55 Vicodin a day and weighing 128 lbs" while filming the series that 30 million people watched.
The actor's main rationale for avoiding his breakout project like the plague is his own appearance in some seasons – he was "brutally thin."
Perry proceeds to say that if he did watch it, he could understand what he was going through this or that season down to the substance.
He once tried to watch an episode and claimed that he could see if he was "drinking," doing "opiates," or doing "cocaine" at the time.
The actor "could tell season by season" just by how Chandler's appearance changed. Matthew believes that watching the show would bring him too much pain, as it would just remind him of the years he was hurting and struggling to break out of those heavy patterns.
That is literally so sad.
Perry does offer some hope for the future though (never say never and all that).
He admits to possibly watching Friends at some point in the future because the show has turned out to be this "incredible thing" that has touched "the hearts of different generations."
Aww, isn't that a nice sentiment?
Hopefully, Matthew will have watched the show by the time the next reunion rolls around – at least then he will have a lot more to talk about!
Source: Q with Tom Power