Matthew Perry Explained Why He Could Never Watch Friends Back Before He Died
Matthew Perry previously shared the heartbreaking reason why he couldn’t watch himself play Chandler Bing in Friends.
The actor played the fan-favourite character on the popular TV sitcom for its 10 seasons and appeared in all 236 episodes.
He joined the cast when he was 24 – making him the youngest cast member – and viewers quickly fell in love with his witty, sarcastic humour.
Despite the show ending in 2004, Friends is still extremely popular – with older audiences happy to rewatch the series while it’s also attracting a new generation of fans.
Before his death aged 54, Perry opened up about why he chose to not watch the sitcom.
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The 17 Again actor explained on Q With Tom Power in November 2022 that he could tell with each season the stage he was at with his struggles with alcohol and drugs.
In the interview, Perry explained: “I didn’t watch the show and haven’t watched the show because I could go drinking… opiates… drinking… cocaine. Like I could tell season by season by how I looked.
“And I don’t think anybody else can, but I certainly could. And that’s why I don’t want to watch it because that’s what I see, that’s what I noticed when I watch it.”
However, despite his previous hesitation, Perry did say that he was becoming open to rewatching the series because of the cultural impact it has had – calling Friends ‘this important, significant thing’.
Perry continued: “I think I’m going to start to watch it because it really has been – first of all, it was an incredible ride – but it’s been an incredible thing to watch it touch the hearts of different generations.
“It was really funny and all the people were nice, and I’ve been too worried about this, and I want to watch Friends too.”
The Fool’s Rush In star also touched upon this in his 2022 memoir, ‘Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing’, where he went into detail about how his appearance changed depending on what he was taking.
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Perry wrote: “If you gauge my weight from season to season – when I’m carrying weight, it’s alcohol; when I am skinny, it’s pills. When I have a goatee, it’s lots of pills.”
Elsewhere in his memoir, The Whole Nine Yards star revealed that his co-star Jennifer Aniston was the one who called him out over his addictions while they were filming Friends.
He wrote: “I had long since gotten over her – ever since she started dating Brad Pitt, I was fine -and had worked out exactly how long to look at her without it being awkward, but still, to be confronted by Jennifer Aniston was devastating.”
He then said Aniston straight up told him: “I know you’re drinking.”
Perry continued: “I was the injured penguin, but I was determined to not let these wonderful people, and this show, down.
“‘We can smell it’, she said, in a kind of weird but loving way, and the plural ‘we’ hit me like a sledgehammer.”
