Matthew Perry says he dumped Julia Roberts over fears she would leave him

Diehard Friends fans will recall the episode in which Chandler Bing hits it off with an old school friend Susie, played by Julia Roberts.

And it turns out that Matthew Perry, the actor behind Chandler, had an off-screen romance with Roberts, too. Check out the moment they worked together on Friends:

The pair starred together in the January 1996 episode of the NBC sitcom The One After the Superbowl: Part 2, while Perry recently revealed that their fling began one year prior as she was approached to feature in the show.

Friends producers encouraged the now 53-year-old to get in touch with the Pretty Woman star after she suggested she would only appear as a special guest if her character could be involved in a storyline with his character, Chandler.

Perry revealed in a recent interview: “I sent her three dozen red roses and the card read, ‘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.

NBC

After she agreed to appear on the show, the pair became involved in a ‘three-month courtship’ - according to Perry in his upcoming autobiography, Friends, Lovers And The Big Terrible Thing.

The couple shared daily fax messages (those were the days) while Roberts was on set for a movie in France. But when she returned to shoot the Friends episode with Perry, they were already official.

He wrote in the autobiography: “Three or four times a day I would sit by my fax machine and watch the piece of paper slowly revealing her next missive.

“I was so excited that some nights I would find myself out at some party sharing a flirtatious exchange with an attractive woman and cut the conversation short so I could race home and see if a new fax had arrived. Nine times out of ten, one had.”

NBC

This arrangement didn’t last long, though, as the actor dumped Roberts over fears she would leave him.

“Dating Julia Roberts had been too much for me. I had been constantly certain that she was going to break up with me. Why would she not? I was not enough; I could never be enough; I was broken, bent, unlovable.

“So instead of facing the inevitable agony of losing her, I broke up with the beautiful and brilliant Julia Roberts,” he sadly admitted.

The pair ended up parting ways two months after the episode aired. Roberts went on to wed singer-songwriter Lyle Lovett in 1993 before they divorced in 1995.

Roberts has now been happily married to cinematographer Danny Moder since July 2002. The pair share twins Hazel and Phinnaeus, now 17, and Henry, 15.

Perry, however, split from his fiancée Molly Hurwitz in June 2021 after three years together. Details of his current love life have not currently come to light.

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