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Friends star Matthew Perry has shared how he courted Julia Roberts with hundreds of faxes – before dumping her because he feared she would leave him.
Perry, 53, revealed that their romance started after the Pretty Woman actress was approached in 1995 to appear on the sitcom. character, Chandler Bing.
Perry said, “I sent her three dozen red roses and the card said, “The only thing more exciting than the prospect of you doing the show is that I finally have an excuse to send you flowers.”
“Not only did Julia agree to do the show, but she also sent me a gift – bagels, lots and lots of bagels,” he told The Times.
Her agreement to star in a special episode of the second series of Friends led to what Perry now describes as a “three-month courtship” via daily faxes while working on a movie in France. By the time filming for the episode started, they were a couple.
In his forthcoming autobiography, Friends, Lovers And The Big Terrible Thing, Perry reveals that they exchanged hundreds of messages in the days before email was commonplace.
Friends star Matthew Perry, 53, revealed his romance with Julia Roberts began after she was approached in 1995 to appear on the sitcom (pictured)
He writes, “Three or four times a day I would sit by my fax machine and watch the piece of paper slowly revealing her next message. I was so excited that some nights at a party I had a flirtatious conversation with an attractive woman and cut off the conversation so I could run home to see if a new fax had arrived. Nine times out of ten it was one.’
He and Mrs. Roberts, who turns 55 this week, eventually started dating, but Perry dumped her two months after she appeared on the show.
He admits, “Dating Julia Roberts had been too much for me. I had been constantly sure that she would break up with me. Why wouldn’t she? I was not enough; I could never be enough; I was broken, bent, unloved.
“So instead of facing the inevitable pain of losing her, I broke up with the beautiful and brilliant Julia Roberts.
“She might have considered dating a TV guy, and TV guy was breaking up with her now. I can’t describe the confusion on her face.’
In the book, due out November 1, Perry also reveals his near-death experience with opioids. And he confesses that five years after Ms. Roberts’ divorce, he saw her pick up an Oscar for her role in Erin Brockovich while he was “sweating and trembling” in rehab, surrounded by fellow patients.
Perry and Mrs. Roberts, who turns 55 this week, eventually started dating (pictured then), but Perry dumped her two months after she appeared on the show
Perry writes: “As she gave her speech, there was a voice in that room in that rehab, urgent, sad, soft, angry, pleading, filled with longing and tears. I was joking. “I’ll take you back,” I said. “I’ll bring you back.” The whole room laughed, although this was not a funny sentence in a sitcom. This was real life now. Those people on TV were no longer my people. No, the people I lay before, trembling, covered in blankets, were now my people.’
Perry also reveals that he was in love with Jennifer Aniston, whom he met through mutual acquaintances three years before they starred together in Friends.
He says, “I was immediately captivated by her (how could I not be?) and liked her. And I got the feeling she was intrigued too – maybe it would turn into something. At the time, I got two jobs in one day… a funniest home video-style show and a sitcom. So I called Jennifer and I said, “You’re the first person I wanted to tell this to.” Bad idea. I felt icing through the phone.
“Looking back, it was clear that that made her think I liked her too much or the wrong way… and I only made the mistake worse by asking her out.
“She declined (which made it really hard to actually date her), but said she’d like to be friends with me.
“I made the compound even bigger by fapping, ‘We can’t be friends!'”