Matthew Perry had ’emergency’ surgery days before the ‘Friends’ meeting

Matthew Perry revealed that he had to undergo “emergency dental surgery” a few days before the filming of “Friends” last April.

“They were doing all kinds of things,” the 53-year-old actor Diane Sawyer said at a meeting that aired Friday on ABC’s Nightline, adding that the procedure “made the [his] lips are like fire. “

During this time, Perry’s slurred speech and a thousand-yard gaze left fans worried about his well-being.

“It sounded like my voice was muted,” he admitted, but knew that “he couldn’t fail to show up.”

“So I decided to just go and do my best,” he told the longtime interlocutor, who noticed “the wear and tear of his voice and speech.”

Perry recently revealed that he had been free of all substances for the past 18 months, meaning he was freshly sober by the time the long-awaited reunion was aired in May 2021.

The Whole Nine Yards star spoke to Sawyer prior to the November 1 release of his phrase “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir,” which he has detailed in several recent interviews.

One of the many bombs he talked about is the fact that his front teeth fell out while biting peanut butter on toast, so he had to replace them all.

During an interview with Sawyer, who became teary at times, Perry explained a time when his colleague from “Friends”, Jennifer Aniston, came to his trailer to intervene, saying the cast may have smelled alcohol on him.

He admitted there were times when his co-stars had to “prop [him] up ”and that the producers confronted him with his addictions as well.

Perry told Sawyer, 76, that he attended approximately 6,000 AA meetings, was in therapy for 30 years, spent half his life in treatment or in sober homes, and was detoxed approximately 65 times.

Earlier this month, the actor revealed that in 2018 he was terribly “close to death” when his colon ruptured from opioid abuse.

At the time, Perry publicly claimed to have suffered “gastrointestinal perforation” but in fact spent five months in the hospital – including two weeks in a coma – and had to use a colostomy pouch for nine months.

“Doctors told my family that I had a 2 percent chance of survival” said the People in a story published on October 19. “I was put on something called an ECMO machine that does all the breathing for your heart and lungs. And it’s called the Hail Mary. Nobody will survive this.

Perry also said that he was one of five people connected to life support that night and that “the other four” did not survive.

The Emmy Award winner – who has been in rehab 15 times in total – explained that scars from dozens of stomach surgeries are “many reminders to stay sober.”

He added that his therapist also helped him overcome his addictions when he told him, “Next time you think about taking Oxycontin, just think about having a colostomy pouch for the rest of your life.”

The Fools Rush In star said the attention had prompted the “little window” to open and that it had “crawled through it.”

An interview with the New York Times shortly after speaking with People, Perry estimated he “spent $ 9 million or something trying to sober up.”

During the same interview, the actor wondered how his years of “exhausting” addiction to drugs and alcohol took over his life at the height of his long career in “Friends”.

At one point, Perry “woke up and had to get 55 Vicodin that day and figure out how to do it.”

“When you’re a drug addict, it’s all about math,” he said. “I wasn’t doing this to get high or good… I just wanted to sit on the couch, grab five Vicodins and watch a movie. It was heaven for me. It’s not anymore.

He told The Times that he started drinking beer and wine at the age of 14, which turned into a vodka blend by Quart, Vicodin, Xanax and OxyContin. He said he drew the line of heroin.

In his memoirs, Perry writes that shortly after his “Friends” character, Chandler Bing, married Monica Geller (Courteney Cox) during the season 7 finale, which aired in 2001, he was “driven back to a treatment facility … in a pickup truck driven by a sober technician ”.

He admits that fans of the show can actually tell what medications he was taking by tracking his “weight from season to season.”

The actor also reveals that he must have left the 2021 movie “Don’t Look Up” after his heart stopped “for five minutes” during spine surgery as his anesthetic drugs combined with hydrocodone still in his system from the night before.

He writes that he is currently on Suboxone – a drug that treats opioid withdrawal – and will be taking it for the rest of his life.

Perry said GQ in an interview published on Thursday, he does not expect his colleagues from “Friends” – with the exception of Lisa Kudrow, who wrote the preface – to read his book, because he believes that only “addicts … and fans of” Friends “are leaving. take care of it. “