In a new book, Matthew Perry talks about his long-term battle with alcoholism and drug addiction – and about why he actually broke up with Julia Roberts, whom he dated in the 90s. “I wasn’t enough,” Perry writes.
In a memorable episode of the television series Friends Hollywood star Julia Roberts appeared as Susie Moss, a character who had a brief romance with Chandler Bing, played by Matthew Perry. The sneak peek was made all the more interesting when it turned out that Roberts and Perry were dating in real life during the filming, something Perry writes about in her new book Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing.
“Was too much for me”
Roberts and Perry’s romance began when he sent her flowers before the filming of the aforementioned Friends-Episode. The relationship took a serious turn when Perry celebrated New Year’s with Roberts and her family in New Mexico in 1996 – but soon after, Perry broke up with the actress.
In an excerpt from Perry’s book, published in The Timeshe tells about the breakup:
“Dating Julia Roberts was too much for me. I was constantly convinced that she would break up. Why wouldn’t she? I was not enough, I would never be enough, I was broken, crooked, impossible to love,” he writes in the book and continues:
“So instead of having to deal with the inevitable pain of losing her, I broke up with the beautiful and brilliant Julia Roberts.”
Perry tells us that Roberts, who at the time of the filming of Friends– episode was one of Hollywood’s biggest stars by far, reacted with surprise:
“She may have thought she was dating below her level when she was with a TV guy, and now the TV guy broke up with her. I can’t put into words how surprised she looked.”
Was in rehab fifteen times
Another memory from Perry’s book is from rehab a few years later – in total he entered rehab fifteen times during his long-term battle with alcoholism and drug addiction.
Perry recalls watching Roberts win an Oscar for his performance in the film Erin Brockovich, while he was “sweating and shaking” surrounded by other patients. Then he made a joke:
“’I’ll take you back,’ I said. ‘I’ll take you back’. The whole room laughed, even though this wasn’t a funny line in a sitcom. This was real. I no longer belonged with those people on TV. No, the people I was lying in front of, shivering, covered in blankets, were the ones I belonged with now,” he writes.
Source: Harper’s Bazaar
