Matthew Perry’s sister reveals devastating reality behind ‘Friends’ wedding episode

Matthew Perry’s sister said the famous “Friends” episode where his character Chandler marries Monica was extremely bittersweet for his family because they didn’t know if they would ever get to see him walk down the aisle in real life.

The actor — who struggled with addiction on-and-off throughout his life — never married or had kids before he tragically died in 2023 at age 54 from acute effects of ketamine.

“When we saw that wedding, we all knew that he had wanted that in life; he wanted a partner and he wanted children,” his sister Mia Perry Bowick told People in an interview published Wednesday.

She added, “We all knew how serious his disorder was, so there was this sense of, ‘Who knows what’s going to happen?’”

Monica (Courteney Cox) and Chandler (Perry) got married during the Season 7 finale of the hit show, which aired in 2001.

Perry revealed in his 2022 book, “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing,” that he was immediately “driven back to the treatment center … in a pickup truck helmed by a sober technician” after the wedding scene wrapped.

He also wrote about his struggles during filming and how viewers could see where he was in the throes of his addiction based off his weight.

“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, adding by the end of the third season, he was trying to obtain 55 Vicodin a day — otherwise he’d get “so sick.”

Perry had a long and colorful dating history, including Gwyneth Paltrow and Julia Roberts in the ’90s.

He went on to date “Mean Girls” star Lizzy Caplan from 2006 to 2012.

In November 2020, the “Fools Rush In” actor revealed he proposed to his then-girlfriend literary manager Molly Hurwitz, but the couple split six months later.

At the time, Perry said in a statement through his rep, “Sometimes things just don’t work out, and this is one of them. I wish Molly the best.”

In his book, he wrote that he was “high as a kite” when he proposed to Hurwitz only learned of his engagement later on.

“I didn’t remember — needless to say, we broke up,” he wrote.

Perry’s sister is speaking out about Perry’s death for the first time in the upcoming Netflix documentary, “The One About Matthew Perry,” which premieres Oct. 27 on Netflix.

Premiering near the three-year anniversary of Perry’s death, the three-episode series includes commentary from Bowick, along with many of Perry’s longtime friends. 

Perry died in his hot tub on Oct. 28, 2023, at his California home. As well as the effects of ketamine, drowning, coronary artery disease and the effects of buprenorphine (an opioid) were also listed on the official autopsy report.

In August 2024, five arrests were made amid the investigation into the circumstances of his passing. Perry’s longtime assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, 61, and four others – including the “Ketamine Queen” Jasveen Sangha – were accused of “profiting” off Perry and his spiraling drug addiction, resulting in his fatal overdose.

Sangha was sentenced to 15 years behind bars for her role in his death, while Iwamasa was sentenced to three years and five months behind bars.