Matthew Perry reveals he quit Don’t Look Up after his heart stopped on an operating table

Friends actor Matthew Perry was due to star in a hit film, but suffered a terrifying ordeal that gave him no choice but to quit.

Matthew Perry was supposed to have a role in the 2021 film Don’t Look Up, but exited the movie’s cast after a medical scare.

The actor was in surgery when his heart stopped for five minutes, according to an excerpt from his memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, published in Rolling Stone.

The Friends star, 53, wrote that while he did film a scene with Jonah Hill as a Republican journalist, he did not return to set. Instead, Perry stayed at a rehab centre in Switzerland, Page Six reports.

Matthew Perry has opened up about his struggle with addiction. Picture: Jason Kempin/Getty Images

Perry explained that he was undergoing surgery to have a “weird medical device” put in his back after lying to his doctors about having severe stomach pain in order to get a hydrocodone prescription.

But because the actor took the opioid the night before, the hydrocodone combined with the anaesthesia drug Propofol that was used during the procedure.

“I was given the shot at 11am,” Perry wrote. “I woke up 11 hours later in a different hospital. Apparently, the Propofol had stopped my heart. For five minutes.”

The Golden Globe nominee clarified that he didn’t have a heart attack.

Perry’s memoir details the horrifying moment. Picture: Getty Images

“I didn’t flatline – but nothing had been beating,” he said. “I was told that some beefy Swiss guy really didn’t want the guy from Friends dying on his table and did CPR on me for the full five minutes, beating and pounding my chest.

“If I hadn’t been on Friends, would he have stopped at three minutes?” Perry continued. “Did Friends save my life again?”

Perry did note that the man “may have saved [his] life” but did break eight of his ribs in the process.

Perry was in too much pain to return to the Don’t Look Up set, which he called “heartbreaking”.

Perry said he was saved by a Swiss doctor who ‘didn’t want the guy from Friends dying on his table’. Picture: Getty Images

The one scene that the Emmy nominee was in did not make it into the final cut of the movie, which came out in December 2021 and starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence.

Perry has been open about his addiction struggles ahead of his book’s November 1 release, telling The New York Times on Sunday that he estimates he has spent $9 million on his sobriety journey.

Having a colostomy bag after his colon burst helped Perry get sober, he told People on Thursday.

“It was pretty hellish having one because they break all the time,” he said. “My therapist said, ‘The next time you think about taking OxyContin, just think about having a colostomy bag for the rest of your life.’”

This article originally appeared on Page Six and has been reproduced here with permission