Matthew Perry Opens Up About Near-Death Experience From Opioid Overuse: 'I Had a 2 Percent Chance to Live'
Matthew Perry is telling all in a new memoir, sharing details about a near-death experience he faced just a few years ago as a result of his battle with addiction.
Matthew Perry is telling all in a new memoir, sharing details about a near-death experience he faced just a few years ago as a result of his battle with addiction.
"I wanted to share when I was safe from going into the dark side of everything again," he says in a new cover story for People. "
I had to wait until I was pretty safely sober -- and away from the active disease of alcoholism and addiction -- to write it all down. And the main thing was, I was pretty certain that it would help people."
In his book -- Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, out Nov. 1 -- Perry recalls suffering a gastrointestinal perforation at age 49 when his colon burst from opioid overuse.
The 53-year-old Friends star fought for his life, spending two weeks in a coma and five months in the hospital, and had to use a colostomy bag for nine months.
"The doctors told my family that I had a two percent chance to live," he tells People.
"I was put on a thing called an ECMO machine, which does all the breathing for your heart and your lungs. And that's called a Hail Mary. No one survives that."