Friends star Matthew Perry says he left Julia Roberts because he was afraid she would leave him
Friends star Matthew Perry has told how he courted Julia Roberts with hundreds of faxes – before dumping her over fears she was leaving him.
Perry, 53, revealed their romance began after the Pretty Woman actress was approached to appear on the sitcom in 1995. Producers urged him to get in touch with Ms. Roberts after she determined she would only guest star if she could star in a story with his character, Chandler Bing.
Perry said, “I sent her three dozen red roses and the card said, ‘The only thing more exciting than the prospect of you doing the show is finally having an excuse to send you flowers.’
“Not only did Julia agree to do the show, she sent me a present – bagels, lots of bagels,” he tells the Times.
Her agreement to star in a special episode of the second series of “Friends” sparked what Perry now describes as “three months of courtship” through daily faxes while working on a film in France. When filming for the episode began, they were a couple.
In his forthcoming autobiography, Friends, Lovers And The Big Terrible Thing, Perry reveals that in the days before email was commonplace, they exchanged hundreds of messages.
Friends star Matthew Perry, 53, revealed his romance with Julia Roberts began after she was approached to appear on the sitcom in 1995 (pictured).
He writes: “Three or four times a day I would sit by my fax machine and watch the piece of paper slowly revealing your next message. I got so excited that some nights I found myself at a party trying to have a flirtatious exchange with an attractive woman and broke the conversation so I could run home and see if a new fax had arrived. Nine times out of ten you had done it.”
He and wife Roberts, who turns 55 this week, eventually entered into a relationship but Perry left her two months after she appeared on the show.
He admits: “Dating Julia Roberts was too much for me. I was constantly certain that she would break up with me. Why shouldn’t she? I wasn’t enough; I could never be enough I was broken, bent, unlovable.
“Rather than face the inevitable agony of losing her, I broke up with the beautiful and brilliant Julia Roberts.
“She might have thought she was going to do it with a TV man, and now the TV man broke up with her. I cannot describe the look of confusion on her face.”
In the book, out November 1, Perry also reveals his near-death experience with opioids. And he confesses that five years after his split, he watched Ms Roberts win an Oscar for her role in Erin Brockovich while he was “sweating and twitching” in rehab surrounded by fellow patients.
Perry and wife Roberts, who turns 55 this week, eventually went into a relationship (pictured at the time) but Perry dumped her two months after appearing on the show
Perry writes, “As she delivered her speech, a voice rose up in that room in that rehab, urgent, sad, gentle, angry, pleading, full of longing and tears. i made a joke “I’ll take you back,” I said. “I’ll bring you back.” The whole room laughed, even though it wasn’t a funny line on a sitcom. This was real life now. Those people on TV weren’t my people anymore. No, the people before whom I lay, trembling, wrapped in blankets, were my people now.’
Perry also reveals he was in love with Jennifer Aniston, whom he met through mutual acquaintances three years before they starred together in Friends.
He says: “I was immediately taken with her (how could I not be?) and liked her. And I had a feeling she was intrigued too – maybe it would be something. Back then I got two jobs in one day… a funniest home video show and a sitcom. So I called Jennifer and said, “You’re the first person I wanted to say that to.” Bad idea. I could feel ice forming through the phone.
“Looking back, it was clear that she thought I liked her too much or in the wrong way… and I only compounded the error by then asking her out.
“She declined (which made it very difficult to actually date her) but said she would like to be friends with me.
“I strengthened the connection by blurting out, ‘We can’t be friends! “
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-11344177/Friends-star-Matthew-Perry-says-dumped-Julia-Roberts-scared-leave-him.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490 Friends star Matthew Perry says he left Julia Roberts because he was afraid she would leave him
