Matthew Perry Reveals the 'Friends' Star Who Confronted Him About His Drinking

Matthew Perry is opening up about the Friends star who confronted him about his drinking, calling it "scary."

In a preview of the 53-year-old actor's upcoming interview with Diane Sawyer on ABC News, Perry reveals Jennifer Aniston was the one who reached out the most when his drinking spiraled out of control. Perry, who confirmed taking Methadone, Xanax and consuming a "full quart of vodka" a day in addition to 55 Vicodin a day, admitted Aniston told him, "We know you're drinking."

"Yeah," Perry confirmed. "Imagine how scary a moment that was. She was the one that reached out the most. I'm really grateful to her for that."

Back in 2021, Aniston said she didn't understand the "self-torture" Perry went through while on Friends.

"I didn’t understand the level of anxiety and self-torture [that] was put on Matthew Perry, if he didn’t get that laugh, and the devastation that he felt,” Aniston said on the Today show. "[But it] makes a lot of sense."

In the interview with Sawyer, slated to air Oct. 28 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC, Perry also said he was "in a coma and escaped death narrowly." The actor's opening up like never before ahead of the release of his memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, out Nov. 1.

Perry also opened up to People about his struggles with alcohol and opioids. He was 24 when he landed the iconic role of Chandler Bing, but Perry was already struggling with heavy alcohol use. The situation turned dire when he turned to Vicodin and got down to 128 pounds.

"I didn't know how to stop," he admitted. "If the police came over to my house and said, 'If you drink tonight, we're going to take you to jail,' I'd start packing. I couldn't stop because the disease and the addiction is progressive. So it gets worse and worse as you grow older."

He also opened up about a near-death experience he faced just a few years ago as a result of his battle with addiction.

In the book, Perry recalls suffering a gastrointestinal perforation at age 49 when his colon burst from opioid overuse. The actor fought for his life, spending two weeks in a coma and five months in the hospital, and had to use a colostomy bag for nine months.

"The doctors told my family that I had a two percent chance to live," he told People. "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."

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