Matthew Perry's darkest moments - near death, burst bowel and weeks in coma

29 October 2023 , 10:05

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Matthew Perry's darkest moments - near death, burst bowel and weeks in coma

Friends fans are in mourning following the shock death of actor Matthew Perry aged just 54. The star had fought a long, well-documented battle with substance and alcohol abuse but is believed to have still been sober before his death.

Matthew was found unconscious in his Los Angeles home yesterday. Emergency responders received a call at 4:07 p.m that the star had suffered a cardiac arrest and arrived to find the star dead in his hot tub. According to TMZ claims, he had just arrived back from playing a round of pickleball (a mash-up of tennis, badminton and ping-pong) and had sent his assistant out on an errand. It is that same aide who is said to have found the star unresponsive when he returned home just two hours later.

Last year, Matthew laid bare his demons, charting his battles with drink and drugs in his rollercoaster autobiography. At one point during Friends' 10-year run, he recalled taking 55 Vicodin a day and his weight dropping down to 128 pounds, but admitted he 'didn't know how to stop'.

Jennifer Aniston comforted Matthew Perry over his struggles on the Friends reunion

In another interview, the Chandler Bing actor talked about how he once privately spent weeks in a coma after misusing opioids when he was 49. He said his family were warned the star had only had a two percent chance of pulling through after his colon burst following a relapse.

He had to use a colostomy bag for nine months following the near-death experience and underwent a total of 14 surgeries on his stomach. He said the scars from the operations acted as a reminder to stay sober.

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"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," Matthew explained.

Ahead of releasing memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, Matthew said: "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."

Matthew bravely spoke out about his addiction to alcohol and drugs (NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)

The star battled for years to stay sober and had been to rehab 17 times (Getty Images)

Matthew's first experience of opioids was back in 1997, three years after Friends became a global hit. He had suffered an injury following a jet ski accident and said the prescription pills made him feel 'better than I ever felt in my entire life'. He soon developed a 'big problem' and checked into a rehabilitation centre for the first time in 1997.

In 2001, Matthew checked into rehab once again for addiction to Vicodin, methadone, amphetamines, and alcohol. And he once opened up about a terrifying rehab breakdown he suffered which saw him 'smash his head into a cement wall' until he was 'covered in blood'.

In his book, Matthew spoke of the moment he was walking down a flight of stairs in a New York hospital in a state of "total confusion". "I'll never be able to fully explain what happened next, but all of a sudden, I started slamming my head against the wall, as hard as humanly possible," he explained. "Fifteen-love. SLAM! Thirty-love. SLAM! Forty-love. SLAM! Game. Ace after ace, volley after perfect volley, my head the ball, the wall of cement the court," Matthew wrote.

Matthew played Chandler Bing in Friends, seen her with guest star Julia Roberts

He added: "All the pain on the cement and on the wall, and all over my face, completing the Grand Slam. The umpire screaming, 'GAME, SET AND MATCH, UNACCOMPANIED MINOR, SIX LOVE, NEEDS LOVE, SIX LOVE. SCARED OF LOVE.'

"There was blood everywhere," he concluded, saying after "eight of these mind-numbing slams" someone stopped and asked him "Why are you doing that?"

Matthew said: "I gazed at her, and looking like Rocky Balboa from every one of those last scenes, I said: 'Because I couldn't think of anything better to do.' Stairwells."

Frances Kindon