Matthew Perry has opened up about his addiction to drugs and alcohol in a bombshell interview about his life story.
The 53-year-old actor, who rose to fame after appearing in the beloved sitcom Friends, has revealed that he had just a 2% chance of survival at his lowest point in life.
In a trailer for his interview with Diane Sawyer of ABC News – which will be released next week – Perry claimed his substance abuse hit its peak in the early 2000s.
“At the time I should have been the toast of the town, I was in a dark room meeting nothing but drug dealers and completely alone,” the Friends star explained in a sneak peek obtained by E! News.
After his colon burst as a result of his opioid addiction, the actor ended up in a two-week coma during which he was put on life support and given a two percent chance of survival.
“The doctors told my family that I had a two percent chance to live. I was put on a thing called an ECMO machine, which does all the breathing for your heart and your lungs. And that’s called a Hail Mary. No one survives that,” he added.
In the bombshell truth reveal, the Friends star also explained that he had to undergo 14 surgeries on his stomach and was forced to wear a colostomy bag for nearly a year at one point.
While he allegedly didn’t receive much external support during his battle with addiction, Matthew admitted that one Friends co-star reached out to him more than the rest.
“[Jennifer Aniston] was the one that reached out the most. I’m really grateful to her for that,” he told Sawyer as he recalled the “scary moment” she confronted him about his drinking while filming the series.
While the actor didn’t reveal when exactly he overcame his addiction and became sober, he insisted he is now “pretty healthy” and lives by the principle of counting each day.
“I wanted to share when I was safe from going into the dark side of everything again,” Perry explained.
“I had to wait until I was pretty safely sober – and away from the active disease of alcoholism and addiction – to write it all down. And the main thing was, I was pretty certain that it would help people.”
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