Jennifer Aniston shocked by Matthew Perry’s ‘level of self-torture’ on Friends
Jennifer Aniston has said she was shocked to learn the “level of self-torture” Matthew Perry went through during Friends’ 10-year run.
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Matthew Perry stunned his co-stars during the Friends reunion when he declared he “felt like I was going to die” if he didn’t get laughs from the studio audience.
The show enjoyed a stellar decade-long run from 1994, before the main cast returned last month for the emotional TV reunion, which is now streaming on Binge*.
And Jennifer Aniston has revealed in a new interview that she had no idea of the extent of Perry’s struggles at the time.
“I didn’t understand the level of anxiety and self-torture [that] was put on Matthew Perry, if he didn’t get that laugh, and the devastation that he felt,” Aniston, 52, told Today. “Which makes a lot of sense.”
RELATED: How much Friends cast were paid for reunion special
During the nearly two-hour special, Perry, who played Chandler Bing in the ’90s sitcom, told the cast he’d have anxiety attacks if his jokes fell flat.
“To me, I felt like I was going to die if they didn’t laugh. And it’s not healthy, for sure,” Perry, 51, said.
“But I would sometimes say a line and they wouldn’t laugh and I would sweat and just go into convulsions. If I didn’t get the laugh I was supposed to get, I would freak out.”
Lisa Kudrow replied by saying: “You didn’t tell us that, though. I don’t remember you ever saying that.”
Stream the Friends reunion only on BINGE. New customers get a 14-day free trial and start streaming instantly. Sign up at binge.com.au
Perry has had a highly publicised battle with a prescription drug addiction, which has seen him enter rehab twice.
In an interview with BBC Radio in 2016, Perry said he didn’t remember three years of filming Friends.
“So none of those … Somewhere between Season 3 and 6, I was a little out of it,” Perry said at the time.
RELATED: Friends director hits back at ‘unkind’ Matthew Perry comments
And the US actor has again made headlines over the past few months, most recently for his break-up with fiancee of seven months, 29-year-old Molly Hurwitz.
Their split, following a three-year relationship, came just days after Perry raised eyebrows among Friends reunion viewers for his seemingly slurred speech and “distant” demeanour.
Prior to that he was outed on a cringe-worthy FaceTime video with a 19-year-old woman on celebrity dating app Raya, which the woman secretly filmed and later posted to TikTok.
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Originally published as Jennifer Aniston shocked by Matthew Perry’s ‘level of self-torture’ on Friends
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