Friends star Jennifer Aniston says she didn’t know about the amount of “anxiety and self-torture” Matthew Perry put himself through under the facade of Chandler Bing. The 54-year-old actress who played the rich-girl-turned-responsible-adult Rachel Green in the sitcom admitted that the Friends reunion shows revealed certain revelations she had no idea about.
However, the new info does bridge some gaps. The star of Murder Mystery said on the Today show: “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.” When the ensemble got back together for the first time in 17 years, the 54-year-old actor who portrayed Chandler Bing in the sitcom disclosed the pressures he put himself through.
If he had a supposed joke that didn’t garner the laughter he was hoping for from the crowd, he confessed that he would “go into convulsions”.”To me, I felt like I was going to die if they didn’t laugh and it’s not healthy, for sure,” he said on Friends: The Reunion.
“If I didn’t get the laugh I was supposed to get, I would freak out.” The Phoebe Buffay character, Lisa Kudrow, expressed her surprise at the remarks during the the show, which aired in 2021 by saying, “You didn’t tell us that then.”
Jennifer said in another segment of her Today interview that she and co-star David Schwimmer, who played Ross Geller, were in a romantic relationship. She said: “I think there was something about unrequited love,’ she said. “I think David and I loved each other – we love each other still to this day – so I do think there was something that had to do with that.”
“And you were investing in something that was very relatable: the one that you never could have or the one you wanted to be with but they couldn’t quite get it together.”
This came about two years prior to Matthew’s death – after the star was found unconscious in a hot tub at age 54. In addition to the stress he had when delivering jokes, Matthew had openly shared his struggles with drug abuse. At age 49, he claimed to have overdosed on opioids, which he said caused his colon to burst.
Despite doctors telling the family that his estimated survival stood at a mere 2%, he lived on and started the road to recovery. The drug problem became such a burden that he couldn’t even watch Friends reruns. He said he made a commitment to the five other talented actors on set to not be “wasted” while working.
“I had too much respect for the five people I was working with. So I was never wasted while working.”