‘Be careful what you wish for!’ Matthew Perry on the Dark Side of Fame and Addiction

A FRIEND of BILL’S –

April 22, 2023 – Matthew Perry “never realised” that there was a dark side to fame.

The 53-year-old actor became a household name when he was cast in the NBC sitcom ‘Friends’ alongside Jennifer Aniston, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow, Courteney Cox, and David Schimmer in 1994 but in later years struggled with addiction and admitted that he ended up using alcohol as a mechanism for “hope”, even after “working hard” to achieve his dreams.

He told Sorted magazine: “’Be careful what you wish for,” is a phrase that’s often aimed at me. Of course, my dreams were no different to those of billions of other kids out there, and I worked hard to realise them. I just didn’t ever realise there was a whole other side to life and to the realities of the world; and if I thought my struggles to make a name for myself were something, then they were nothing compared to the aftermath of actually finding fame.

“ I was never afraid to be different in terms, of how I dressed or the music I listened to or what I did with my spare time, because there is something cool in that, as a kid, and it’s free choice.

“I think when it’s familial then there is a different perception. It’s involuntary, and perhaps the tag of blended families back then was very different to what it is now and the acceptance that is carried with the subject. For whatever reason, it did feel different back then.” When I drank with friends, it switched me off from the challenges and the troubles. It blurred the hard lines and gave me energy, hope and belief… for a while at least.”