George Clooney has revealed that Matthew Perry “wasn’t happy” when he filmed the iconic sitcom Friends.
The actor was best known for starring as funnyman, Chandler Bing in the classic TV show.
He sadly passed away on October 28, with his death recently being ruled as an accident from the “acute effects of ketamine”.
The 62-year-old Ocean’s 11 actor spoke to Deadline about Matthew’s struggle with addiction and how this affected his time on the show.
George starred on the TV show ER at the same time Friends was aired, with both actors filming “side by side on the soundstage.”
George said: “He wasn’t happy. It didn’t bring him joy or happiness or peace.”
“And watching that go on on the lot — we were at Warner Brothers, we were there right next to each other — it was hard to watch because we didn’t know what was going through him.”
He continued: “We just knew that he wasn’t happy and I had no idea he was doing what, 12 Vicodin a day and all the stuff he talked about, all that heartbreaking stuff. ”
“And it also just tells you that success and money and all those things, it doesn’t just automatically bring you happiness. You have to be happy with yourself and your life.”
The actor told the opened up about his time spent with Matthew: “I knew Matt when he was 16 years old.”
“We used to play paddle tennis together. He’s about 10 years younger than me.”
“He was a great, funny, funny, funny kid,” he added.
An autopsy report stated that Matthew was “receiving ketamine infusion therapy for depression and anxiety” with the most recent dose reportedly taken one and a half weeks before his death.
The report continued: “The ketamine in his system at death could not be from that infusion therapy, since ketamine’s half-life is three-to-four hours, or less.”
In his memoir Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, Matthew opened up about his lengthy battle with addiction and revealed he almost died when he was 49 years old.
The Friends star spent weeks in a hospital fighting for his life after his colon burst from opioid overuse.
