Matthew Perry was one of the few actors who candidly spoke about his experience overcoming substance abuse. In his memoir “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing,” which was released a year before his untimely death, he opened up about going in and out of rehab, even in the middle of filming “Friends.” He said that he spent roughly $7 million just trying to get better. “I’ve been in a mental institution, gone to therapy twice a week for thirty years, been to death’s door,” he wrote.
He also shared that in 2002, he was so intoxicated while filming the movie “Serving Sara” that he had to shell out over half a million to salvage his parts. “I needed to make real amends… so I recorded my slurred parts for the entire movie, which meant I looped the entire movie,” he penned. “Then I committed to doing the most press possible in the history of press, bending over backward to make things right.”
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In a later interview with The New York Times, the actor revised his estimate and shared that he likely spent $9 million on treatments. But he told People that he’d rather be penniless than go through the same turmoil again. “The fact that I would trade it all to not have this disease is true,” he admitted. “But I don’t belittle how fun the experience has been on ‘Friends.’ And the money was amazing. Just the creative experience of being on the show probably saved my life.”
