Matthew Perry’s Radical Honesty Helped Us All

Matthew Perry entered his first rehab in 1997, back when the internet was a novelty and phones plugged into a wall. Friends was the king of primetime and Perry its court jester, a floppy-haired virtuoso of sarcasm and comic timing, but his 28-day stint in Hazelden for Vicodin, splashed across gossip rags, told a darker tale, one that would outlast his TV show’s long run. He went back to rehab in 2001 (booze) and then 2003 (Vicodin). In 2011, when he announced that, yes, Matthew Perry was checking in to rehab again, he knew this was getting old. His statement said, “Please enjoy making fun of me on the World Wide Web.”