The actor’s publicist and manager worked with him for more than 30 years, before his death in 2023. They discuss the man behind the headlines – and why they are continuing his mission to help others struggling with addiction

Watch the third season of Friends, writes Matthew Perry in his memoir, and you can see how thin he had become by the end of it. “Opioids fuck with your appetite, plus they make you vomit constantly,” he writes. Look again, and yes – his fragile wrists emerge from a shirt that looks as if he has borrowed it from someone far larger, his trousers hang off him – and it’s unbearably sad now, with the knowledge that addiction would kill Perry nearly 30 years later, at the age of 54. At the time, most people watching probably wouldn’t have noticed, dazzled instead by Perry’s sharpness and immaculate comic timing as Chandler Bing, the show’s dry wit. He was having to take 55 Vicodin pills a day – an opioid - just to function and avoid terrible withdrawal symptoms, but he was never high while he was working, he writes in Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing , which came out in 2022. He just had to make it to the end of the season so he could get help. Had the series lasted for more than its 25 episodes, he thought it would have killed him.

That was the first time Perry went into rehab. He was 26, and one of the biggest stars in the world. There would be more than 65 attempts to detox from drug and alcohol addiction over the next decades until his death in 2023. Last week, a doctor was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for supplying ketamine in the lead-up to Perry’s death (though not the ketamine that killed him); three others who have pleaded guilty will be sentenced in the coming months.

The actor’s publicist and manager worked with him for more than 30 years, before his death in 2023. They discuss the man behind the headlines – and why they are continuing his mission to help others struggling with addiction

Watch the third season of Friends, writes Matthew Perry in his memoir, and you can see how thin he had become by the end of it. “Opioids fuck with your appetite, plus they make you vomit constantly,” he writes. Look again, and yes – his fragile wrists emerge from a shirt that looks as if he has borrowed it from someone far larger, his trousers hang off him – and it’s unbearably sad now, with the knowledge that addiction would kill Perry nearly 30 years later, at the age of 54. At the time, most people watching probably wouldn’t have noticed, dazzled instead by Perry’s sharpness and immaculate comic timing as Chandler Bing, the show’s dry wit. He was having to take 55 Vicodin pills a day – an opioid - just to function and avoid terrible withdrawal symptoms, but he was never high while he was working, he writes in Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing , which came out in 2022. He just had to make it to the end of the season so he could get help. Had the series lasted for more than its 25 episodes, he thought it would have killed him.

That was the first time Perry went into rehab. He was 26, and one of the biggest stars in the world. There would be more than 65 attempts to detox from drug and alcohol addiction over the next decades until his death in 2023. Last week, a doctor was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for supplying ketamine in the lead-up to Perry’s death (though not the ketamine that killed him); three others who have pleaded guilty will be sentenced in the coming months.

The actor’s publicist and manager worked with him for more than 30 years, before his death in 2023. They discuss the man behind the headlines – and why they are continuing his mission to help others struggling with addiction

Watch the third season of Friends, writes Matthew Perry in his memoir, and you can see how thin he had become by the end of it. “Opioids fuck with your appetite, plus they make you vomit constantly,” he writes. Look again, and yes – his fragile wrists emerge from a shirt that looks as if he has borrowed it from someone far larger, his trousers hang off him – and it’s unbearably sad now, with the knowledge that addiction would kill Perry nearly 30 years later, at the age of 54. At the time, most people watching probably wouldn’t have noticed, dazzled instead by Perry’s sharpness and immaculate comic timing as Chandler Bing, the show’s dry wit. He was having to take 55 Vicodin pills a day – an opioid - just to function and avoid terrible withdrawal symptoms, but he was never high while he was working, he writes in Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing , which came out in 2022. He just had to make it to the end of the season so he could get help. Had the series lasted for more than its 25 episodes, he thought it would have killed him.

That was the first time Perry went into rehab. He was 26, and one of the biggest stars in the world. There would be more than 65 attempts to detox from drug and alcohol addiction over the next decades until his death in 2023. Last week, a doctor was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for supplying ketamine in the lead-up to Perry’s death (though not the ketamine that killed him); three others who have pleaded guilty will be sentenced in the coming months.

After a ceasefire deal he brokered collapsed, Trump told a rally in Pennsylvania that he would ‘make a call’ to ‘stop a war’ between Thailand and Cambodia

US president Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he will make a call regarding reignited hostilities on the Thai-Cambodia border, where fighting has resumed less than two months after a ceasefire he brokered between the two nations collapsed.

Speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania, the US president reiterated his global peacemaking skills, proclaiming that “in ten months I ended eight wars”, before listing hostilities between Kosovo and Serbia, Pakistan and India, and Israel and Iran.

After a ceasefire deal he brokered collapsed, Trump told a rally in Pennsylvania that he would ‘make a call’ to ‘stop a war’ between Thailand and Cambodia

US president Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he will make a call regarding reignited hostilities on the Thai-Cambodia border, where fighting has resumed less than two months after a ceasefire he brokered between the two nations collapsed.

Speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania, the US president reiterated his global peacemaking skills, proclaiming that “in ten months I ended eight wars”, before listing hostilities between Kosovo and Serbia, Pakistan and India, and Israel and Iran.

After a ceasefire deal he brokered collapsed, Trump told a rally in Pennsylvania that he would ‘make a call’ to ‘stop a war’ between Thailand and Cambodia

US president Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he will make a call regarding reignited hostilities on the Thai-Cambodia border, where fighting has resumed less than two months after a ceasefire he brokered between the two nations collapsed.

Speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania, the US president reiterated his global peacemaking skills, proclaiming that “in ten months I ended eight wars”, before listing hostilities between Kosovo and Serbia, Pakistan and India, and Israel and Iran.

The Emily in Paris actor and writer of the Tony-nominated Slave Play remains in Japan while prosecutors investigate the alleged discovery of MDMA in his bag

The American playwright and Emily in Paris actor Jeremy O Harris has been released three weeks after his arrest in Japan on suspicion of drug smuggling while prosecutors investigate, police said Wednesday.

Japan has some of the world’s strictest drug laws, and possession of illegal narcotics can result in jail time. Prosecutors also have a very high conviction rate.

The Emily in Paris actor and writer of the Tony-nominated Slave Play remains in Japan while prosecutors investigate the alleged discovery of MDMA in his bag

The American playwright and Emily in Paris actor Jeremy O Harris has been released three weeks after his arrest in Japan on suspicion of drug smuggling while prosecutors investigate, police said Wednesday.

Japan has some of the world’s strictest drug laws, and possession of illegal narcotics can result in jail time. Prosecutors also have a very high conviction rate.

The Emily in Paris actor and writer of the Tony-nominated Slave Play remains in Japan while prosecutors investigate the alleged discovery of MDMA in his bag

The American playwright and Emily in Paris actor Jeremy O Harris has been released three weeks after his arrest in Japan on suspicion of drug smuggling while prosecutors investigate, police said Wednesday.

Japan has some of the world’s strictest drug laws, and possession of illegal narcotics can result in jail time. Prosecutors also have a very high conviction rate.