Matthew Perry Was Only Sober for One Season of Friends; Can You Guess Which One?
Matthew Perry's book Friends, Lovers & The Big Terrible Thing, released this fall, has caused quite a stir among Hollywood crowd and fans alike.
The Friends star shared many of his intimate moments with the public, and one of the biggest revelations he made was about his lifelong struggle with drug and alcohol addiction.
Literally, Perry said he was high or under the influence for most of his Friends tenure, and it was possible to "follow the trajectory" of his addiction by the way he looked:
"When I'm carrying weight, it's alcohol; when I'm skinny, it's pills. When I have a goatee, it's lots of pills," Perry said.
Still, there was one and only season of Friends when the Chandler Bing actor was clean. It was Season 9, and Perry was able to stay "completely sober" for the entirety of it.
"Friends was a juggernaut, too, and I didn't have to worry about f*****g that up — I was clean, and I was about to have my season, the one where everyone was talking about Chandler," the actor wrote, adding that it was "the only year I was completely sober for a Friends season."
Perry's drug addiction came at a price. Of course, it cost the Friends alum his health, and he almost died once when his colon exploded after taking too many pills and he was put on life support. It also cost him a lot of money.
In his interview with the New York Times, he said that he spent around $9 million trying to get sober. This is the money he paid for rehab and various medical emergencies caused by his drug abuse, including more than a dozen stomach surgeries.
In his book Perry also pays tribute to Hollywood greats Chris Farley, River Phoenix and Heath Ledger, whose deaths were caused by substance abuse.
Perry has said he has been sober since 2021 – when the Friends reunion aired in May. In fact, it was his co-stars on the show who helped him realize that he needed to fight his decades-long addiction.
Both Jennifer Aniston ( Rachel Green) and Lisa Kudrow ( Phoebe Buffay) came to the rescue, with the latter penning a foreword to his memoir saying that Perry's version of this "hideous disease' is tough but she will "always be there for him." She said she truly loved Matthew Perry and that the entire Friends cast felt like one big family.