Matthew Perry has revealed he had to undergo ’emergency dental surgery’ days before filming the ‘Friends’ reunion last April.
“They did all kinds of things,” the 53-year-old actor told Diane Sawyer in an interview aired Friday on ABC’s “Nightline,” adding that the proceedings “made [his] mouth feeling like fire.
At the time, Perry’s slurred speech and thousand-yard gaze left fans worried for his well-being.
“It sounded like my voice was off,” he admitted, but he knew he “couldn’t not show up.”
“So what I chose to do is go and do my best,” he told the longtime interviewer, who noted “the wear and tear on his voice and his speech”.
Perry recently revealed he had been substance-free for 18 months, meaning he was newly sober by the time the highly anticipated reunion aired in May 2021.
The “Whole Nine Yards” star sat down with Sawyer ahead of the Nov. 1 release of his reveal, “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir,” the content of which he detailed in several recent interviews.
One of the many bombshells he’s talked about is when his front teeth fell out while he was biting into peanut butter on toast, which is why he had to have them all replaced.
During his interview with Sawyer, which at times turned tearful, Perry explained the moment his “Friends” co-star Jennifer Aniston came to his trailer to intervene, saying the cast could smell the alcohol on him.
He admitted that there were times when his co-stars had to “support [him] up” and that the producers also confronted him about his addictions.
Perry told Sawyer, 76, that he’s attended about 6,000 A.A. meetings, been in therapy for 30 years, spent half his life in treatment or in sober houses and that he’s been to rehab about 65 times.
Earlier this month, the actor revealed he was ‘close to death’ in 2018 when his colon burst due to overuse of opioids.
At the time, Perry publicly claimed he had suffered a “gastrointestinal perforation”, but in reality he spent five months in hospital – including two weeks in a coma – and had to use a bag of colostomy for nine months.
“The doctors told my family that I had a 2% chance of living,” he told People in an article published on October 19. lungs. And it’s called a Hail Mary. No one survives it. »
Perry also told the outlet that he was one of five people connected to life support that night and “the other four” did not survive.
The Emmy winner – who has been in rehab a total of 15 times – explained that the scars from his dozens of stomach surgeries are “a lot of reminders to stay sober”.
He added that his therapist also helped him get rid of his addictions when they told him: “‘The next time you think about taking Oxycontin, just think about having a colostomy bag for the rest of your life. “”
The ‘Fools Rush In’ star said the remark prompted “a little window” to open and he “crawled through”.
Speaking to The New York Times shortly after his chat with People, Perry estimated that he “spent $9 million or something trying to get sober.”
During the same interview, the actor opened up about how his decades-long “exhausting” drug and alcohol addictions took over his life during the height of his long career on “Friends.” “.
At some point Perry would “wake up and have to get 55 Vicodin that day and figure out how to do it.”
“When you’re an addict, it’s all math,” he said. “I wasn’t doing it to feel high or to feel good… I just wanted to sit on my couch, take five Vicodins and watch a movie. It was heaven for me. This is no longer the case.
He told The Times that he started drinking beer and wine when he was 14, which turned into a combination of liter vodka, Vicodin, Xanax and OxyContin. He said he pulled the line on heroin.
In his memoir, Perry writes that immediately after his “Friends” character, Chandler Bing, married Monica Geller (Courteney Cox) in the season 7 finale, which aired in 2001, he was “taken back to the treatment center …in a van helmed by a sober technician.
He admits fans of the show can actually tell what drugs he was on by tracking his “weight from season to season.”
Actor also reveals he had to quit 2021 film ‘Don’t Look Up’ after his heart stopped ‘for five minutes’ in the middle of back surgery because of his anesthetic medication had combined with the hydrocodone still in his system from the night before.
He thinks he is currently taking Suboxone – a drug that treats opioid withdrawal – and will be taking it for the rest of his life.
Perry told GQ in an interview published Thursday that he doesn’t expect his ‘Friends’ co-stars — except for Lisa Kudrow, who wrote the foreword — to read his book. because he only believes “drug addicts…and ‘Friends’ fans.” ‘ will care.
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