New Delhi: Matthew Perry struggled to manage his substance use while filming Friends. His addiction also took a toll on his health and career. In 2002, production on his romantic comedy Serving Sara was halted because he was unable to continue working.
In Netflix’s docuseries The One About Matthew Perry, his sister, Mia Perry Bowick, revealed that the actor spent $7 million trying to get sober. From attending three Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings a day to going through 15 stints in rehab, Perry tried everything, but still “never completed a year in sobriety”. His addiction also led to a near-death experience in 2018, when his colon ruptured due to opioid use.
During his struggles with addiction in rehab, Perry would often listen to Mike Posner’s ‘I Took a Pill in Ibiza’. For him, the lyrics perfectly articulated his state of mind.
“Around Season 5, 6, and 7, we were starting to hear that he was having a very hard time managing his substance use while also filming Friends,” Bowick said.
Perry tried to conceal his addiction “so he would take just enough to make him feel OK but not enough to appear high, which was tricky”.
“He needed it to manage his withdrawal symptoms, tremors and stuff,” she added.
Jeff Strauss, a writer on the first season of Friends, said he began hearing “rumours” that Perry had become “challenging and problematic” to work with.
Things came to a head when production on Serving Sara was shut down. Bowick recalled that Perry realised he needed to enter rehab again. He felt “shame and guilt” because he knew that people’s livelihoods “depended on” the production.
“He hated that he had to do that to people, but he also knew that he needed to get well,” she said.
Perry’s friend Tim Harrington, who had struggled with addiction himself, moved in with the actor in 2001. During their time as roommates, the two “went to meetings three times a day”, Harrington said.
He recalled playing Train’s song ‘Drops of Jupiter’ “a hundred times” on their way to an AA meeting at the historic West Hollywood Log Cabin.
After their morning meeting, the two would have breakfast before attending another meeting at noon. They would then discuss “what their next meeting would be”, Harrington said.
Attending so many meetings was a way of “putting out of our minds the pain and discomfort and struggle,” he explained. “When it got quiet, that stuff would rise to the top.”
“He spent $7 million trying to get sober, that’s how seriously he took his disease,” Bowick said.
At one point, Perry’s friends even considered tying him up in a desperate attempt to help him.
“There was a point there where I was like, ‘Let’s tie him up.’ I was desperate for an answer,” said Roger Castillo. “It’s very hard to support somebody when they’re not calling you back or they’re avoiding you. I did wonder what else I could do.”
Perry’s sobriety anniversary fell close to Bowick’s birthday. However, his sister noted that “he never quite could make it for a year”.
Failure post ‘Friends’ put him in a spiral
When Friends ended in 2004, Perry was left with the sudden void in his professional life. Although he tried multiple projects, nothing quite worked out.
“There was a vast expanse of space, all of a sudden and not necessarily knowing what’s gonna fill in that space,” Bowick said.
The disappointment of these shows not working was tangled up in Perry’s health. Bowick added that her brother may have believed, deep down, that some of his projects “would have gone differently” if he had been able to stay well.
Perry’s next major role came in Aaron Sorkin’s NBC series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006). However, the show was cancelled after just one season in 2007. Nate Torrance, one of Perry’s co-stars on Studio 60, said the actor was “feeling the pressure” as the show struggled.
In 2011, Perry co-created and starred in the ABC sitcom Mr. Sunshine, which got low ratings and was cancelled after one season. Torrance, who appeared in the show as well, recalled how Perry reacted to the cancellation.
“When he called to let us know the show was cancelled, he was so apologetic to me. And he said, ‘I’m just so sorry. I’m so sorry, man. I couldn’t get you there.’”
Following these professional setbacks, Perry began to recognise “how much he wanted to be helping people,” Bowick said. This realisation came around 2013.
“It started in AA, when he got to sponsor people,” she said. “As time went on, he got more and more interested in things like drug court, or opening his own sober living, and really trying to do as much as he can with the platform he had.”
Also read: Matthew Perry’s jet ski accident changed everything. His addiction began with pain meds
‘He is not waking up’
Bowick recalled getting a call from a hospital in 2018 after Perry suffered a medical emergency and fell into a coma.
“It was the first time I have seen him and I was like, ‘This is it, he’s not waking up,’” she said, adding that Perry had experienced “a lot of near misses” over the years.
“There’s been overdoses, there’s been car accidents, there’s been all sorts of stuff. But this was the only time that there were a lot of people going, ‘We have no idea if he’s coming out of this thing’,” Bowick explained.
Doctors told Bowick that Perry’s colon had ruptured in “several places, causing intense sepsis throughout his entire body”. In October 2022, Perry spoke about the near-death experience in an interview with People.
“The doctors told my family that I had a 2 per cent chance to live,” Perry said. The actor underwent multiple surgeries to repair his colon.
“At one point the decision was made to put him on an ECMO machine, which is basically like an iron lung. His fingertips were turning black. There was a possibility that he would lose his fingers,” Bowick revealed in the docuseries.
After Perry emerged from the coma, his sister said that “he just kind of quietly closed his eyes, and just started crying” when he was told what had happened. He was scared when he found out that he was in a coma.
At the time, Bowick felt “cautiously optimistic” that the experience might become Perry’s “rock bottom” and serve as a wake-up call.
But his recovery remained difficult even after he returned home.
“He had a completely open wound in his gut that wasn’t fully and completely healed. He had a colostomy bag. He aged 20 years in three months,” his sister said.
Perry “could barely walk” at the time and needed nurses and sober companions to care for him around the clock, she added.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)