Matthew Perry Admits He Nearly Died A Few Years Ago After Suffering Colon Burst From Drug Use

‘Friends‘ star Matthew Perry is truly lucky to be alive. You may remember hearing about how he was hospitalized a few years ago for a gastrointestinal perforation.

At the time, he and his reps tried to downplay the incident, but now in his upcoming memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, Perry is admitting he came very close to dying.

He revealed his colon burst and he had to be placed inside a coma for two weeks. In total, he was inside a hospital for five months! That’s nearly half a year! This all due to opioid overuse.

“The doctors told my family I had a 2 percent chance to live,” he told People. He had to use a colostomy bag for nine months.

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.

These days, Perry claims he’s much healthier. He’s eating right, going to the gym regularly and staying away from Oxycontin. The 14 scars on his stomach serve as a reminder to never touch the pills again.

He did not reveal how long he’s been sober since his last relapse, but the 53-year-old actor says the date is not everything.

It’s important, but if you lose your sobriety, it doesn’t mean you lose all that time and education. Your sober date changes, but that’s all that changes. You know everything you knew before, as long as you were able to fight your way back without dying, you learn a lot.

His memoir drops November 1, 2022. Sounds like it might be worth a read.