Why Matthew Perry never watched ‘Friends’: ‘I could go, drinking, opiates…’

Matthew Perry, who played Chandler Bing on hit sit-com Friends, made a confession about never watching the show – just 1 year before his tragic passing, sharing that it reminded him of his battle with drug addiction.

The beloved actor and comedian was only 54 when he died on Sunday after drowning in his jacuzzi. He was found unresponsive in the jacuzzi by his assistant.

In an interview last year, he opened up on not being able to watch Friends, saying, “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.”

“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’.”

Perry shared that he never got high while working on the show, out of respect for his five co-stars: Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc and Lisa Kudrow.

“I had a rule that I would never drink or do drugs while working. Because I had too much respect for the five people I was working with. So I was never wasted while working.”

Perry who’d been very vocal about his drug abuse and had many rehab stays, also reflected on feeling singled out by his struggle.

“The thing that always makes me cry… is that it’s not fair. It’s not fair that I had to go through this disease while the other five didn’t.”