George Clooney Reflects on Matthew Perry's 'Heartbreaking' Addiction Struggle

George Clooney attends "The Boys In The Boat" New York Screening at Museum of Modern Art on December 13, 2023 in New York City. (Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images)

Money doesn't buy happiness.

George Clooney made this very point in a recent interview while reflecting on his late friend Matthew Perry's longtime struggle with addiction. Clooney, who worked on ER on the Warner Brothers lot, not far from where Friends filmed, and previously knew Perry as a "funny" teen, confessed that the 17 Again star never found true happiness while filming his NBC comedy.

"I knew Matt when he was 16 years old," Clooney recalled to Deadline. "We used to play paddle tennis together. He’s about 10 years younger than me...He was a kid and all he would say to us, I mean me, Richard Kind and Grant Heslov, was, 'I just want to get on a sitcom, man. I just want to get on a regular sitcom and I would be the happiest man on earth.' And he got on probably one of the best ever."

However, as Clooney next shared, "He wasn’t happy. It didn’t bring him joy or happiness or peace. And watching that go on on the lot—we were at Warner Brothers, we were there right next to each other —it was hard to watch because we didn’t know what was going through him. We just knew that he wasn’t happy and I had no idea he was doing what, 12 Vicodin a day and all the stuff he talked about, all that heartbreaking stuff."

The lesson the Oscar winner took away from these poignant memories? "It also just tells you that success and money and all those things, it doesn’t just automatically bring you happiness," he added. "You have to be happy with yourself and your life."

Perry, who played Chandler Bing on all 10 seasons of Friends, passed away at the age of 54 in October. While his death was first reported as an apparent drowning, his autopsy report later revealed that the actor died from "the acute effects of ketamine."

"Contributing factors in Mr. Perry’s death include drowning, coronary artery disease and the effects of buprenorphine (used to treat opioid use disorder)," the December update continued.

The manner of death for Perry was officially ruled an "accident."

Before his passing, The Whole Nine Yards star had been incredibly candid about his frequent struggles with drug and alcohol addiction. In his 2022 memoir, titled Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, Perry shared, "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."

Next: Doctor Unravels Ketamine's Role in Matthew Perry's Death Following Autopsy Report