Matthew Perry Book Review: Friends, Lovers & The Big Terrible Thing

all right guys I decided I would try to do something I've never done before and I have no script for this I'm just going to talk off uh off the top of my head but uh I picked up Matthew Perry's Memoir it's titled Brands lovers and the big terrible thing and uh I dug right into this I finished it in a weekend 270 plus pages and uh it was kind of shocking to me the amount of stuff you hear about Hollywood behind the scenes the most iconic show of all time in this man with a crippling addiction he's hung over half the times more than half the time he's on set it really uh gave me a lot to think about in fact I I've been sober for a couple weeks now just because just seeing what you know drinking and drugs did to this man it's kind of turned me off the idea altogether so just want to unpack some of the stuff I know people are talking about the Keanu Reeves Jabs he makes in here he's dated Julia Roberts he went on a date with Cameron Diaz uh but there's more to it than just like the Hollywood headlines that I've been reading uh and I don't want to just give you guys a summary of what the book is because if you're that interested then you'll pick it up and read it for yourself but I want to talk about uh what I learned I guess from uh seeing someone at such a high dealing with so much addiction and uh for some reason whatever reason these are kind of books that I gravitate towards I remember reading the Russell Brand book and then the follow-up uh I think it was his boogie Wookie talking about again him being on MTV a host and dealing with a very serious heroin addiction now uh here with Matthew Perry it's alcohol and opiates uh but this guy it's unbelievable to hear the extent he went to I believe it was like 16 different rehab centers his colon explodes nearly killing him uh and then there's another thing where his heart stopped beating uh and just like absolute desperation to keep getting high and he always wanted to do it alone so I don't know if anyone watching this if you have addiction issues I for one I've been very public that I have mental health issues uh I take some medication for depression and I'm very up and down in my moods just because uh I guess the career I chose you know sometimes you're killing it sometimes things are not going your way and before YouTube you know I was an actor and I was always in the Arts which is a very tough business and of course that makes me relate to stories like this so yeah Matthew Perry there's a lot of stuff to unpack here that I've never heard anyone ever speak of uh I got to imagine uh I'm probably one of the few book reviews on the topic so he might even watch this video and if he does Matthew uh I would just want to thank you for being so open and honest I've been following his career forever I believe when I grew up I was reading the the tabloids and uh he says in the book he was the first celebrity to be uh in rehab and it to be publicized and you got to imagine when you are dealing with something that's bigger than yourself and you're on the world's biggest show and everyone knows you've got a problem I would imagine that would only intensify the issue right because it's something you're trying to hide and then everyone's talking about it and at that point [ __ ] the cat's out of the bag maybe he made him indulge more I'm not sure but he was going to rehab actively I believe the first time was like around season two or three of friends he had a friend saying listen you really have a problem and uh it's interesting he even talks about his weight gain and his weight loss if he was very skinny that's because the opiates they were making it hard for him to digest food he wouldn't eat if he did eat he would throw it up and that's why he's so skinny in some of the seasons then later on he got really heavy he got really fat and that was because of the alcohol he loved vodka vodka and tonics I believe her his drink and he was drinking gallons a night by himself every night for years so again I think I'm getting a little off topic but I just found it uh interesting he opened up about some stuff about uh almost being celibate like all the way up into his 20s yeah he couldn't get an erection with a woman when he was a young boy and for whatever reason that stuck with him until a woman really like got it out of him so like I just found that no one else would ever mention something like that especially not men and uh he lived his life thinking that it was never gonna work and all of a sudden he got over that hurdle I think that explains like some mental health issues on top of the addiction as well uh and it's interesting as well to see that this guy came from a life of luxury really I mean his mother she worked for the prime minister of Canada I live in Canada that's not an easy job to get and then his father was the Old Spice man a working actor in Los Angeles so you know these are two people of uh of amazing credentials and uh it's not like like think about the cast on friends I believe Matt LeBlanc was from much less means Lisa Kudrow maybe Jennifer Aniston her dad was an actor Courtney Cox is related to Bruce Springsteen fine but he was still on the upper echelon of people and to see that later on in his life he chose not to attend the Hollywood parties he'd rather meet up with a drug dealer and then be alone on that point I found one thing very interesting he talked about dating Julia Roberts and then while she was getting her Oscar for Aaron Brockovich he was in bed or in a rehab center under a blanket and watching it on TV and I guess at five or six years had passed but he could really see you know the different directions at one point they were a couple and now she's getting an Oscar and he's in a rehab center I could just imagine if you know I [ __ ] my life up that bad I would really sting uh some negative points I guess I feel like I had to put the book down at a few points because you uh you start to you kind of get mad at the guy there's the Keanu Reeves jab everyone's talking about I I think he just picked someone out of thin air to kind of throw some salt at they're both Canadian Actors I'm sure keanu's gone on to have a much more lucrative and successful career than Matthew Perry maybe he's resentful for that um but yeah he could have really picked anyone like um you throw someone under the bus who's like committed a crime rather than go after Keanu Reeves right like everyone loves Keanu I believe Matthew Perry has apologized for that since so let's move on yeah there's just points where you kind of like going dude you're talking about making one million an episode then 1.1 million episode in the final season 80 million dollars in total plus movie roles coming in left right and Center for multiple million you have it all like dude just [ __ ] slap out of it be a man like overcome like you're you're rooting for him to just get on with it and just put the demons to bed but in this book He's explaining that they're power more powerful than him something that he could never come to terms with now makes me wonder if he didn't have all the money in the world would this happen to him did all that Fame and Fortune allow you know him to really just do as he pleased without having anyone to answer to in the book he talks about never getting married uh never settling down with a woman always running off when things got serious so he really put up very few uh barricades to stop his bad behavior he uh his parents were um kind of you know out of the pitcher they'd only see him in the hospital and uh it seems like the people he surrounded himself with were influencing it rather than deterring him from his behavior he'd then have to hire people to kind of babysit him but I feel like at that point he was always the man in charge because he was so wealthy I don't know if I loved him right now reading this there isn't an era of Cockiness it's it's mind-blowing how much she accomplished like you can't take any of that away from him the number one show the whole nine yards was the number one movie he also wrote a play wrote this book and he was a tennis player and kid like he's been successful and accomplished amazing things time and time again which another thing that just blows my mind away that someone dealing with such a crippling addiction can also still function and be that phenomenal I believe he got nominated for uh for a Golden Globe for his performance on friends but that was the season that he was absolutely sober goes to show you right there so yeah overall like listen I really enjoyed it I can't believe someone uh is this open and honest you see him doing press for it and he's uh you know it's like his voice the way he speaks is the damaged forever his brain receptors are moving a little slow he's old he's frail and in the book he tells you some of the physical operations he's been through the man is just thankful to be alive he also kind of uh ends it he found God in the end he gets um he gets pleasure or passion out of helping others and he's had so much of drinking drugs that he's actually like pushed all the boundaries if he takes any more he knows he'll certainly die so I do wish him uh a fantastic life into his future he quit smoking he quit absolutely everything he's over 18 months sober and uh it's one day at a time kind of stuff so you gotta congratulate the man I would say pick it up for me it clicked a lot of boxes I love Hollywood history I love um biographies which this is and uh it was definitely a home run for me um and yeah again he was always so closeted about his issues and I think with the big reunion uh the cat was out of the bag you know he was slurring he doesn't look good he looks 10 years older than the rest of his cast members when he makes jokes they're kind of off-putting and uh the rest are keeping up with the Joneses he's kind of like a street person and now we're finally getting an explanation as to why this might also give him uh another couple decades of uh work to do he's a public figure of sobriety and addiction and I'm sure the Hollywood needs more of them because he he parties he parties it all away now he's got something else to do I don't know that was a bad joke anyways guys uh this is just something different I wanted to make uh just off the top of my head again no no no script um so this I might have made some mistakes in reporting this I apologize if I offended anyone kudos to Matthew Perry check out the book I'll leave a link down below see you guys in another video [Music]