Matthew Perry thought he was impotent for several years as a teenager. (Photo: Matthew Perry via Instagram)
Matthew Perry thought he was impotent for several years as a young man.
The 53-year-old actor’s book, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir, is out Tuesday, and it tells yet another story of how his addiction has impacted his life.
Perry started drinking when he was 14. In the years that followed, he began experimenting sexually, but only after drinking “six beers before” out of nervousness. As a result, he “could not perform”. At just 15, he thought he had “a dick that wouldn’t work.”
He wrote: “I failed to make the correlation between the alcohol and my non-functioning private parts. And no one could know about it. No one. So I walked around the planet thinking sex was for other people for a long time. Years. Sex sounded terribly fun, but it wasn’t in my arsenal. That means in my head, and at least in my pants, that I was impotent from birth.
Perry later learned that wasn’t the case when he began dating Tricia Leigh Fisher, the actress/singer daughter of Eddie Fisher and Connie Stevens and half-sister to the late Carrie Fisher. Perry, who was 18 when the romance began, recalled Tricia, now 53, beautiful and charming. She also cured him of his misdiagnosed impotence.
Matthew Perry and Tricia Leigh Fisher together on November 15, 1987 in Los Angeles. (Photo: Barry King/WireImage)
Perry said to keep his secret from coming out, he initially told Tricia he wanted to wait until he was married to have sex, citing his Catholic upbringing. But two months later, he claimed Tricia took matters into her own hands when they were alone in his studio apartment. He said he was scared his secret would be exposed, but he was also in love. So he confided in her “the whole shameful story,” including that he “was impotent and always would be.
Trisha calmly and simply assured him that it “would never happen to him again” that he couldn’t perform, and escorted him into the bedroom. “Sure enough, sheer glory for two full minutes,” he quipped.
The story goes on
He said he lost his virginity thanks to Tricia, “a beautiful woman who deserved better.” “Impotence has been out of my vocabulary ever since – just like she promised. Everything about me, at least physically, works perfectly.”
And how did he repay Tricia? By “sleeping with almost every woman in Southern California,” he added.
Perry’s book contains many stories of relationships and romance, including the kiss of Valerie Bertinelli, his Sydney co-star, in 1990 while she was still married to Eddie Van Halen. (The rocker passed out in the room.) He wrote about dating Julia Roberts during the Friends era — and then breaking up with her for fear she’d dump him first. He went on a date from hell with Cameron Diaz post-Friends and also said he made out with Gwyneth Paltrow.
And while those love stories are seedy, Perry’s goal in writing the book is to detail his decades-long struggles with alcohol and opioid addiction. At the height of Friends, he was taking 55 pills a day. He almost died in 2018 after his colon exploded. That didn’t stop him from consuming. Two years later, he had another near-death experience. He has been sober for the past 18 months.
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir is available now.