Matthew Perry’s Memoir: The 6 Most Revealing Facts the Late Actor Revealed About His Too Short Life

"Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty. And I should be dead." It's the opening line in the late Matthew Perry’s memoir entitled Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing. But that wasn't the only thing the actor, known for his role as the loveable Chandler Bing, revealed within the pages of his book. He also detailed how he felt about Friends ending, his crippling addiction and the time he almost died. Keep reading for more.  

Matthew Perry’s quotes on addiction  

Over the course of his life, Perry certainly didn’t shy away from detailing his struggles with drugs and alcohol, and even said that Friends fans can tell when they watch the show.  

Writes Perry: “You can track the trajectory of my addiction if you gauge my weight from season to season — 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."  

However, he also noted that, "Acting was another one of my drugs. And it didn't do the damage that alcohol was already starting to do. In fact, it was getting harder and harder to wake up after a night of drinking." 

Matthew Perry’s quotes on being in a coma 

In his memoir Friends, Lovers and The Big Bad Terrible Thing, Perry detailed that after his colon burst from all the oxycontin he had used and he had to be hospitalized for five months, almost dying  at age 49.  

Writes the actor: "I had been on opiates, and off opiates, and back on different opiates for so long that I suffered from a situation that only a subset of the population gets. Opiates cause constipation. It's kind of poetic. I was so full of sh*t it almost killed me.”  

Perry also revealed that he was in a coma for two weeks and had to use a colostomy bag for nine months after he woke up.  

Matthew Perry’s quotes almost dying  

Perry also had a near-death experience in 2020 after he was given propofol for surgery at a Switzerland-based medical center. Perry was there after he faked symptoms trying to get hydrocodone pills.   

"I was given the shot at eleven a.m. I woke up 11 hours later in a different hospital. Apparently, the propofol had stopped my heart. For five minutes,” wrote Perry. "Nothing had been beating. I was told that some beefy Swiss guy really didn't want the guy from Friends dying on his table and did CPR on me for the full five minutes, beating and pounding my chest. If I hadn't been on Friends, would he have stopped at three minutes? Did Friends save my life again?" 

Matthew Perry’s quotes on ‘Friends’ ending 

No one was as upset about the lights at Central Perk going out as Perry, who wrote, “With no ridiculously high paying, dream-come-true kind of job to go to, and no special someone in my life, things slipped fast. In fact, it was like falling off a cliff.” 

Perry also detailed that he asked one of the show creators, Marta Kauffman, if he could deliver the last line of the show because he thought the show meant more to him than any other cast member. 

Matthew Perry’s quotes about getting sober  

Perry was no stranger to sobriety, writing in his book, “I have spent upward of $7 million trying to get sober. I have been to six thousand AA meetings. (Not an exaggeration, more an educated guess.) I've been to rehab fifteen times. I've been in a mental institution, gone to therapy twice a week for thirty years, been to death's door." 

Perry had been sober for 19 months at the time of his death, writing, “Sobriety had now become the most important thing in my life. Because I learned that if you put anything in front of sobriety, you will lose that 'anything' anyway if you drink."  

Perry first went into rehab in 1997 after he developed an addiction to Vicodin.  

Matthew Perry’s quotes how he wants to be remembered 

Perry might have been a comedic genius, but that is not what he wants to be remembered for, detailing in his book that, "When I die, I don't want Friends to be the first thing that's mentioned. I want [helping people] to be the first thing that's mentioned, and I'm gonna live the rest of my life proving that." 

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