Matthew Perry had option to leave 'Friends' amidst addiction struggles

Matthew Perry was offered break from Friends during his battle with addiction.

In a recent interview The Times, the creators of the popular sitcom, Marta Kauffman and David Crane revealed they noticed Perry's struggles with substance abuse.

Crane shared that when they became aware of Perry's addiction issues, they gave him the option to step away from filming to focus on his recovery.

"By the time we became aware of it, we were already a family on a lot of levels," he said.

Crane added, "There was a point where we said to him, ‘Do you want to stop [being in the show]?’ And he was adamantly like, ‘No, this is really important to me’."

Perry, famed for his role as Chandler Bing, faced addiction problems that started after a jet ski accident in 1997.

He openly discussed his struggles with painkillers and other substances in interviews and his memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing.

"You can track the trajectory for my addiction if you gauge my weight from season to season. When I’m carrying weight, it’s alcohol; when I’m skinny, it’s pills. When I have a goatee, it’s lots of pills," he wrote in his memoir.

The actor passed away on October 28, 2023, due to the acute effects of ketamine.