Matthew Perry can't watch any of Friends back because of heartbreaking reason
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Featured Image Credit: CBC/NBC
Matthew Perry has revealed that he is unable to watch back old episodes of Friends.
For years, the 53-year-old and his five co-stars were the biggest stars on the planet, with millions tuning in to watch the sitcom every week.
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And now, over a decade since the last episode aired, fans still continue to rewatch the series over and over again.
However, Perry, who played joker Chandler Bing in the long-running show, has admitted that he can't bring himself to watch it back.
During his time on Friends, the actor battled drug and alcohol addiction, a disease that almost killed him.
Speaking to CBC, Perry said he can 'can’t watch the show back' because he can spot what kind of substances he was taking in each season.
"I was taking 55 Vicodin a day, I weighed 128 lbs, I was on Friends getting watched by 30 million people — and that’s why I can’t watch the show, ‘cause I was brutally thin," he said.
"I didn’t watch the show, and haven’t watched the show, because I could go, 'Drinking, opiates, drinking, cocaine'.
"I could tell season by season by how I looked. That’s why I don’t wanna watch it, because that’s what I see."
Recalling on particularly bad hangover he experienced while on set, Perry said he struggled to stand up straight.
"At one point I was shaking so much that if I was gonna go from the bookshelf to the table, I’d have to quickly do it and put my hand on the table so I wouldn’t shake," he said. "It got that bad.”
During the interview, Perry began to tear up as he expressed how devastating that period was for him.
He said: "You know, the thing that always makes me cry — and I hope I don’t cry here — is that it’s not fair. It’s not, it’s not fair.
"It’s not fair that I had to go through this disease while the other five didn’t. They got everything that I got, but I had to fight this thing — and still have to fight this thing."
Speaking to People, Perry revealed that his alcoholism was just taking root when he landed the role that would change his life on the astronomically popular sitcom.
Over the years on the show, his addiction escalated - and in 2018, it nearly cost him his life.
While Perry publicly said he had been hospitalised for a gastrointestinal perforation, the truth was that his colon had burst from using opioids.
He was hospitalised for a total of five months, two weeks of which he was in a coma.
Perry then had to wear a colostomy bag for nine months.
He said: "The doctors told my family that I had a two percent chance to live.
"I was put on a thing called an Ecmo machine, which does all the breathing for your heart and your lungs. And that's called a Hail Mary. No one survives that."
Topics: Film & TV, US News, Friends, Entertainment
