Perry worked on the popular comedy for ten years, but while viewers were giggling at the classic ‘Pivot!’ sequence and swooning over Chandler’s love story with Courteney Cox’s Monica, Perry was quietly dealing with substance misuse.

“Hard doesn’t even begin to describe it,” his co-star Lisa Kudrow told The New York Times in 2002.

“It was not enjoyable when Matthew was unwell. We were just standing on the sidelines, helpless. We were in a lot of pain.

“Matthew is one of the most amusing people I’ve ever met.” He’s nice and amusing.

“Matthew was responsible for the majority of our hard laughs.”

In 2002, Matt LeBlanc informed People about Perry’s difficulties while filming Friends.

“I tried to talk to him,” he explained. There was no reaction. It’s such a personal issue; they must find their way out on their own.”

Perry stated last year, when promoting his memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, why he never revisits his portrayal of Chandler.

“I didn’t watch the show and haven’t watched the show because I could go, ‘Drinking, opiates, drinking, cocaine,'” he told CBC.

“I could tell by how I looked from season to season.” That’s why I don’t want to see it; that’s what I see.”

Perry recalled struggling to stand up straight after a particularly nasty hangover while on set.

“At one point, I was shaking so much that if I wanted to go from the bookshelf to the table, I’d have to do it quickly and put my hand on the table to keep from shaking,” he explained. “It had gotten that bad.”

Perry claimed to People that his drinking was just starting to take hold when he earned the part that would transform his life in the wildly famous comedy.

His addiction worsened during the course of the show, nearly costing him his life in 2018.

While Perry claimed he was hospitalized for gastrointestinal perforation, the fact was that his colon had ruptured due to opiate use.

He was hospitalized for five months in all, two of which he spent in a coma.

“The doctors told my family that I had a 2% chance of survival,” he explained.

Perry has been clean since 2021, and he hopes to enjoy another year of being happier and healthier than he was on Friends today.