Matthew Perry wanted to be remembered for helping fellow addicts. The 54-year-old shared his wish in a November 2022 interview, which has resurfaced in the wake of his shock death aged 54 on Saturday (28.10.23) in the hot tub at his home in Los Angeles in a suspected drowning.
Matthew – whose drug addictions almost killed him – told in the chat on the ‘Q with Tom Power’ podcast, which is being shared online by fans, about how he didn’t want his role as Chandler Bing in ‘Friends’ to be his legacy: “Best thing about me – bar none – is if somebody comes up to me and says, ‘I can’t stop drinking, can you help me?’ I can say ‘Yes’ and follow up and do it. That’s the best thing.
“And I’ve said this for a long time, when I die, I don’t want ‘Friends’ to be the first thing that’s mentioned. I want that to be the first thing that’s mentioned, and I’m going to live the rest of my life proving that.” Matthew admitted he knew despite his wish that his power to help addicts would fall “far behind” on his list of accomplishments when it came to being remembered by fans.
He added: “I know it won’t happen, but it would be nice.”
In 2013, Matthew turned his Malibu mansion into a sober living facility for men and named it ‘Perry’s House’. Matthew also revealed he wrote a theatre production about his addiction battles.
He added: “I also wrote my play ‘The End of Longing’, which is a personal message to the world, an exaggerated form of me as a drunk. “I had something important to say to people like me, and to people who love people like me.’”
Matthew’s memoir ‘Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing: A Candid, Darkly Funny Book’ exposed his struggles with addictions – which got so severe that in 2018 at the age of 49 he suffered a gastrointestinal perforation as a result of his extreme opiate usage. He was given just a two percent chance of living after being comatose for two weeks and the actor had to use a colostomy bag while his colon healed.
Matthew revealed that while his body was relying on the bag, he woke up covered in his own faeces “50 to 60” times throughout the five months he was hospitalized. He said: “I had s*** all over my fave, all over my body, in the bed next door.
“When it breaks, it breaks. You have to get nurses.” He said at the peak of his addictions he was consuming about 55 Vicodin pills a day and weighed just 128 pounds. Matthew also joked viewers could now tell what drugs he was abusing by observing his varying appearance on ‘Friends’.
He said in his book: “You can track the trajectory for my addiction if you gauge my weight from season to season. When I’m carrying weight, it’s alcohol; when I’m skinny, it’s pills; when I have a goatee, it’s a lot of pills.”
Also Read: Matthew Perry’s Family Expresses Gratitude And Grief Following His Tragic Passing