What I never paid much attention to were the real lives of Matthew Perry and his co-stars. I just enjoyed them for the moment. Of course, all are now famous thanks to Friends.
Perry’s real life included his parents divorcing when he was a child and his father moving from Canada to California, and Perry coping with addictions to drugs and alcohol and subsequent health problems.
He began drinking alcohol at the age of 14 and progressed on to Vicodin after a jet-skiing accident.
We never saw the torment the poor guy was living through on-screen, hidden as it was behind the comedian’s glib lines, ready smile and boyish good looks. Behind that facade was a guy struggling with depression and addiction.
All too often, we see shining bright stars fade away long before their time - wonderfully talented artists who struggle with their inner demons on a daily basis, mostly unknown to their fan bases and even sometimes their closest friends.
As Perry says in his recent autobiography, “There is a hell. Don’t let anyone tell you different. End of discussion.”
The pressure of just coping with addiction and the accompanying depression, being locked into it day-to-day, seeing no way out but still trying to see a way through, is bad enough.
But if you add fame, the pressure to perform before an audience, constant public exposure and examination of a lifestyle...
Reading about your exploits in the celebrity columns, if you feel the need to do that to yourself. The severe lack of privacy and the resulting loneliness when you put steps in place to protect yourself and your loved ones from that exposure - it is no wonder many suffer.
We mere mortals have no concept of what it must be like to be someone like Matthew Perry. Under it all, he was just a man, a son.
He was deeply loved by his friends on a personal basis, and by his fans for the way he made us laugh, and took us out of ourselves and our worries for a short time each week.
He became a very rich man, but material things are shallow and the price he paid for fame was steep.
Matthew had been dry for over a year before his death. Maybe he had begun to beat his demons at last.
I profess to know little about true addiction, having never been down that road. But I have spent time with addicts.
The main thing in common the ones I know or knew had was that they had no choice and they would never have deliberately set out to become addicts. It just happened. Why would someone choose that ongoing misery and heartache?
Addicts are ill people. They are not bad people or weak people. They are just unwell people who would mostly do anything to change their lives if they could in order to feel well.
Addiction has no respect for wealth, station in life, education, fame or just people who live ordinary lives. It will visit some of us, leaving people broken in health and emotionally drained, and often leaving lost jobs, families and joy behind.
When I look at someone like Matthew Perry who, outwardly, lived a life I could not even dream of, I only feel sadness and compassion.
He did not ask for the years of torment he went through and, in the end, a relatively young death. All he wanted to do was to make people laugh and like him.
Rest in peace, Matthew, you made me laugh. You were a very good person who helped others, too.
