The one that nobody read? Matthew Perry gets candid about the cast of Friends in his memoir — but he still doesn’t think they’ll read it.
“Why would they read it? I don’t know,” Perry, 53, told GQ in an interview published on Thursday, October 27. “Because, you know, who cares? Addicts are going to care about this, and fans of Friends are going to care about this. But the cast is not going to really care about this.”
The Fools Rush In actor starred as Chandler Bing in the hit NBC comedy from 1994 to 2004 opposite Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc and Lisa Kudrow.
While Perry says that none of his former castmates will take interest in his new book, titled Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, a source exclusively told Us Weekly earlier this week that Aniston, 53, is someone the 17 Again star has been able to lean on in the past.
“She always took time to listen to him, even when she was busy or had her own issues to deal with,” the insider shared, noting that Perry feels like the “people who stood by him when the chips were down” — including the Morning Show actress — are the ones who “saved his life” and “gave him the will to carry on.”
The Three to Tango actor, for his part, has been open about how Aniston checked in on him more than his other Friends costars over the years. “She was the one that reached out the most,” Perry told Diane Sawyer during his October 21 interview with ABC. “I’m really grateful to her for that.”
The Breakup star was also the first person to confront the Massachusetts native about his drinking habits while they were shooting the hit sitcom.
“Jen thought of the cast as her family. She still does, but back then even more so because they were together all the time and making it on the fame ladder together,” a second insider exclusively revealed to Us. “They all had their demons and temptations to manage in one way or other, but for Matthew especially it boiled down to getting a grip on his addictions.”
The source added that Perry was “by far the most fragile member of the cast,” which made Aniston worry for him “enormously.”
While the Birds of America actor isn’t sure the Horrible Bosses star will read his book, one Friends alum already has. Kudrow, 59, wrote the forward for the memoir, which is set to hit stores on November 1.
“It’s a hideous disease, and he has a tough version of it. What’s not changing is his will to keep going, keep fighting and keep living,” the Easy A star told the New York Times for a story published on Sunday, October 23. “I love Matthew a lot. We’re part of a family. I’m basically ending this with ‘I’ll be there for you’ [the Friends theme song], but it’s true. I’ll always be there for him.”
