“Hello, I’m Chandler. I make jokes once I’m uncomfortable.”
“Till I used to be 25, I assumed that the one response to ‘I really like you’ was ‘Oh, crap!’”
Whether or not you’re a Gen-Xer who grew up with the celebs of NBC’s Emmy-winning sequence “Associates” after its 1994 debut or a Zoomer who found the present within the streaming period, you'll be able to most likely guess on the supply of those darkish witticisms: May it BE anybody apart from Chandler Bing?
What you’ll discover out after studying actor Matthew Perry’s harrowing memoir, “Associates, Lovers and the Huge Horrible Factor,” is that such traces are additionally a case of artwork imitating life.
“I was Chandler,” Perry writes in his ebook, out Nov. 1, explaining that each he and his most well-known character have used humor to compensate for his or her crippling fears, relationship anxieties and self-sabotaging habits.
The place actor and character diverge is that Chandler finds happiness, marrying Monica Geller (Courteney Cox) and having twins; Perry, in contrast, solely not too long ago emerged from a long time of intractable habit, which culminated three years in the past in a well being disaster he was very fortunate to outlive.
Perry, 53, writes that he deeply regrets how his drug and alcohol abuse have price him relationships. Now 18 months sober, he writes, he suffers from auditory hallucinations and can most likely must take Suboxone to deal with opioid dependence for the remainder of his life. This leaves him, he provides, in a constant state of anhedonia: a diminished capacity to really feel pleasure.
With traces like “my thoughts is out to kill me, and I do know it,” Perry opens a window into the thoughts of an addict, a spot during which the battle to get sober is a civil battle and plenty of battles are misplaced to relapse.
It’s price him in each means. He writes that he spent greater than $7 million making an attempt to get sober. (Perry raised the estimate to $9 million in a current interview.) His efforts included 15 stints in rehabilitation services and one in a psychological establishment; hypnosis classes; 6,000 visits to AA and remedy twice per week for 30 years. Whereas capturing an unused bit for Adam McKay’s 2021 movie “Don’t Look Up,” he flew to a Swiss rehab and again on a personal jet — $175,000 a pop.
Right here’s what you’ll study from his candid new memoir.
THE ONE THAT SCARED HIM MOSTLY STRAIGHT
Perry particulars a number of near-death experiences. On one event, his coronary heart stopped beating for 5 minutes. Later, he was popping drugs laced with fentanyl (and paying $3,000 for them a number of occasions per week).
“It is rather odd to stay in a world the place should you died, it might shock individuals however shock nobody,” he writes.
However a 2019 incident was his closest name, he writes. He fell right into a coma for 14 days after his colon burst. Medical doctors advised his relations he had a 2% likelihood of survival. ‘I used to be so stuffed with s— it nearly killed me,” he writes. It turned out to be a life-saving wake-up name. As we speak, the considered needing a colostomy bag for all times retains him from utilizing, coupled with the truth that alcohol and opiates “merely don’t work for me anymore”: Even on 1,800 milligrams of opiates a day, he might now not get excessive.
THE ONES WHO GOT AWAY
Perry writes that at age 19 he fell in love with Valerie Bertinelli on the set of “Sydney.” In line with him, they shared “an elaborate makeout session” whereas Bertinelli’s husband, rock star Eddie Van Halen, was handed out a couple of toes away. He additionally writes that he made out with Gwyneth Paltrow inside a closet. Neither of those dalliances went very far.
One relationship nonetheless haunts him to today. He was along with Rachel Dunn, a girl he met upon crashing her twenty third birthday celebration, for six years and nearly requested her to marry him, however chickened out. “All my fears reared up like a snake,” he writes. “I typically assume if I’d requested, now we’d have two youngsters and a home. As a substitute, I’m some schmuck who’s alone in his home at fifty-three.”
He additionally shares an account of a misplaced love that “nonetheless hurts” — somebody he met on a movie set in 1999. He fell exhausting however she in the end rejected him, making it clear that “my consuming was an issue.” Perry doesn't identify the girl, although he did star alongside Neve Campbell in 1999’s “Three to Tango.”
Greater than 20 years later, Perry purchased a hoop and proposed to a girl whereas at a Switzerland rehab. However he was excessive on hydrocodone and later forgot the entire thing. It was months after his coma — nonetheless present process surgical procedures and nonetheless struggling to get clear. He was “determined” and “didn’t need to be this injured and alone” through the peak of the COVID pandemic. Perry doesn’t identify her, however final 12 months Folks reported on a damaged engagement with literary supervisor Molly Hurwitz.
THE ONE WITH JULIA ROBERTS
When Julia Roberts solely agreed to look on “Associates” if she could possibly be in Chandler’s storyline, showrunner Marta Kauffman inspired Perry to ship the actress flowers. That kicked off a romance between the 2, in keeping with Perry — starting with the (so very Nineteen Nineties) alternate of flirty messages over fax machines. They had been already a pair by the point they started filming.
However just like the overwhelming majority of Perry’s relationships, it ended when he felt he was letting his guard down, reigniting a lifelong worry of abandonment. Perry traces these points partly to his father leaving the household when Matthew was a child and his mom was 21.
“If I drop my recreation, my Chandler, and present you who I actually am,” he writes, “you may discover me, however worse, you may discover me and go away me.”
THE ONE WITH JENNIFER ANISTON
Years earlier than they had been each forged in “Associates,” Perry requested Jennifer Aniston out. She declined, however he would proceed to “crush badly” for her.
THE ONE WITH THE CASTING GOSSIP
Perry writes that considered one of his finest pals, Hank Azaria of “The Simpsons” fame, auditioned to play Joey twice. When Matt LeBlanc scored the half, Perry was initially “slightly jealous” of his “leading-man seems to be.”
One other shut pal, Craig Bierko, a former co-star on “Sydney,” was first supplied the a part of Chandler, in keeping with Perry, however turned it down. After Perry was forged and the present grew to become a direct hit, he says he and Bierko didn’t communicate for 2 years.
Touchdown the a part of Chandler saved Perry’s life, he writes. In any other case, it wouldn’t have been “out of the realms of chance” for him to have “ended up on the streets of Downtown L.A. capturing heroin.” He writes that heroin was a line he was terrified to cross. “It's due to that worry that I'm nonetheless alive at the moment.”
THE ONE WITH THE BACKSTAGE DRAMA
Perry factors out you could inform how and what he was utilizing all through the varied “Associates” seasons. First, he dropped 10 kilos of “alcohol fats” between the pilot and the primary episode. His weight fluctuated between 128 and 225 kilos whereas making the present. If he was carrying weight, it was alcohol abuse. If he was skinny, it was drugs. If he had a goatee it was “a number of drugs.” By the top of Season 3, he spent most of his time making an attempt to acquire Vicodin — 55 drugs a day. Typically he’d go to open homes simply to steal some from medication cupboards.
Though he asserts he was by no means excessive whereas filming “Associates,” he’d typically be sick or hungover. As soon as, Perry handed out on the Central Perk sofa and LeBlanc needed to nudge him awake to say his line. Later, Aniston known as him out for consuming once more, telling him, “We are able to scent it.” Season 9 was the one 12 months he was “fully sober.”
THE ONE WHERE THINGS GOT WORSE
Even earlier than “Associates” wrapped in 2004, habit was already exacting a toll on Perry’s post-TV profession. Perry writes that round March 2001, whereas filming “Serving Sara” (2002), he was on methadone, Xanax and cocaine and consuming a full quart of vodka a day. He confirmed as much as movie a scene, solely to appreciate it had been shot a couple of days earlier. He shut down the movie’s manufacturing (and postponed his “Associates” scenes) so he might go to a Marina del Rey detox heart. He was dwelling in a rehab facility in Malibu when Chandler and Monica tied the knot. As for “Serving Sara,” he says producers later billed him $650,000 for the breach and dragged him into postproduction to dub over his slurred traces.
Once more in rehab round November 2020, his coronary heart stopped after medical doctors administered propofol that interacted with the hydrocodone in his system. Paramedics saved his life with CPR however broke eight ribs within the course of, in the end costing him scenes with Meryl Streep in “Don’t Look Up.” (Simply earlier than the incident he was in a position to shoot a scene with Jonah Hill, however his scenes had been minimize from the completed movie.)
Lately, Perry’s entrance enamel fell out whereas he was biting into a bit of toast. He eliminated and changed all his pearly whites.
THE ONE WITH THE FISTICUFFS
Perry beat up Justin Trudeau once they had been youngsters — effectively earlier than the latter grew to become Canada’s prime minister. Perry’s Canadian mom was the press secretary for Justin’s father, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, and little Matthew resented the time she spent at work.
Years later, he was arrange on a date with Cameron Diaz after she stopped seeing Justin Timberlake. Diaz bought instantly stoned and by chance punched Perry within the face, he writes.
Additionally, he by chance hit his personal idol, Chevy Chase, within the balls.
THE ONE WITH HOPE
Perry has been “largely sober” since 2001, “save for about sixty or seventy little mishaps.” He would hand over his fame and wealth in a heartbeat to “not have a mind that wishes [him] useless.” However he’s slowly “buying a style for actuality” and is decided to determine his objective.
“There's a cause I’m nonetheless right here. And determining why is the duty that has been put in entrance of me.”
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