Matthew Perry, who died last week from drowning in his hot tub, admitted to suffering from anxiety two years ago.
The scare arose when he tried to be as funny as possible in front of the live studio audience of Friends, which aired from 1994 to 2004.
The confession came up during the HBO Max Friends reunion starring Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer, which aired in May 2021.
His attempts to be “great” made him extremely nervous.
And his co-stars at the reunion said they never had any idea he was suffering on set because he always delivered such a fantastic performance while seemingly at ease, they believed.
He had anxiety: Matthew Perry, who died last week by drowning in his hot tub, admitted two years ago that he suffered from anxiety. Seen in November 2022
To be fair, the scare came when he was trying to be as funny as possible in front of the live studio audience of Friends, which aired from 1994 to 2004. The confession came up during the HBO Max Friends reunion with Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow , Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer, airing in 2021
“For me, I felt like I was going to die if they didn’t laugh,” he revealed while on the set of Central Perk.
“And it’s definitely not healthy, but sometimes I would say a line and they wouldn’t laugh and I would sweat and just convulse if I didn’t get the laugh I should have.”
Perry added, “I would panic.”
His costar Lisa Kudrow was shocked to hear that.
She said Perry was always such a cool cucumber. And he was one of the best on set, always delivering a great line when he played Chandler Bing.
Perry never said anything to his fellow actors at the time. “Oh yeah, that’s how I felt every night,” he said, looking a little embarrassed.
Perry died Saturday at the age of 54 at his home in Los Angeles.
The star had prescription drugs, including antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs, in his home at the time of his death, but no illegal drugs, a police source claims.
The law enforcement mole told TMZ that the Friends star was also in possession of a prescription COPD medication.
COPD stands for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, with the medications found in Perry’s home usually being used for people with emphysema or chronic bronchitis.
Perry was a smoker and also struggled with an addiction to alcohol and opiates, but claimed to have been clean shortly before his suspected drowning.
Perry wanted to be remembered for helping fellow addicts.
The actor shared his wish in an interview in November 2022, which resurfaced after his shock death.
So much pressure to dazzle: his attempts to be ‘great’ made him extremely nervous
Difficult to be great all the time: . And his co-stars at the reunion said they never had any idea he was suffering on set because he always delivered such a fantastic performance while seemingly at ease, they believed. Seen with Aniston
In the chat on the ‘Q With Tom Power’ podcast, which is shared online by fans, Matthew – whose drug addiction almost killed him – talked about how he didn’t want his role as Chandler Bing in Friends to become his legacy: ‘ The best thing about me – bar none – is when someone comes to me and says, ‘I can’t stop drinking, can you help me?’ I can say ‘Yes’, follow up and do it. That is the best.
“And I’ve been saying this for a long time: When I die, I don’t want ‘Friends’ to be the first thing mentioned.
“I want this to be the first thing that comes up, and I’m going to have to spend the rest of my life proving that.”
Matthew admitted that despite his wishes, he knew his ability to help addicts would fall “far behind” on his list of achievements when it came to being remembered by fans.
He added, “I know it won’t happen, but it would be nice.”
In 2013, Matthew turned his Malibu mansion into a sober living facility for men and named it “Perry’s House.”
Matthew also revealed that he wrote a theater production about his addiction battles.
He added: ‘I also wrote my play ‘The End of Longing’, a personal message to the world, an exaggerated form of me as a drunkard.
“I had something important to say to people like me, and to people who love people like me.”
Matthew’s memoir “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing: A Candid, Darkly Funny Book” laid bare his struggles with addiction — which became so severe that he suffered a gastrointestinal perforation in 2018 at the age of 49 as a result of his extreme opiate use .
He was given just a two percent chance of living after being in a coma for two weeks and the actor had to use a colostomy bag while his colon healed.
Matthew revealed that while his body was dependent on the bag, he woke up covered in his own feces ’50 to 60′ times during the five months he was in hospital.
IMAGE – In memory of Matthew Perry: Memorial growing outside the Friends home in the West Village on Monday
Matthew also joked that viewers could now tell what drugs he was taking by observing his varying appearances on Friends. He said in his book: ‘You can follow the trajectory of my addiction if you measure my weight from season to season. “If I’m carrying weight, it’s alcohol; if I’m skinny, it’s pills; if I have a goatee, it’s a lot of pills.’ Seen in 2004
He said: ‘I had sex all over my body, all over my body, in the next bed.
‘If it breaks, it breaks. You need to get nurses.”
He said that at the height of his addiction, he was taking about 55 Vicodin pills a day and weighed only 128 pounds.
Matthew also joked that viewers could now tell what drugs he was taking by observing his varying appearances on Friends.
He said in his book: ‘You can follow the trajectory of my addiction if you measure my weight from season to season.
“If I’m carrying weight, it’s alcohol; if I’m skinny, it’s pills; if I have a goatee, it’s a lot of pills.’