Matthew Perry revealed that he had a big crush on Jennifer Aniston – both before and during “Friends” – but she allegedly turned him down.
In his new memoir, “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing,” the actor writes that he met Aniston prior to filming the hit sitcom and was “immediately taken” by her presence.
Perry remembers at one point calling up Aniston and trying to impress her with exciting news that he booked two acting roles.
“It was clear that this made her think I liked her too much, or in the wrong kind of way,” he writes in the book, out Nov. 1.
Still, he proceeded to ask her out.
Perry claims Aniston declined the offer and suggested they just be friends instead, to which he blurted out, “[We] can’t be friends!”
Enlarge ImageJennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry posing for a photo together in 1995
Perry gushed that he was crushing on Aniston way before “Friends.”
Ron Davis
The two eventually sat down for their first table read in 1994, and even though Perry still had some romantic feelings towards her, they “were able to sail right past the past and focus on the fact that we had both gotten the best job Hollywood had to offer.”
Unfortunately for Perry, his feelings for Aniston continued throughout the making of “Friends.” He says he frequently found himself over analyzing every casual interaction the two of them had.
Friends – Season 1
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Perry writes about going to detox while on “Friends.”
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Perry’s feelings for Aniston slowly but surely went away due to both the show’s success and her continued “deafening lack of interest” – although they did share an onscreen kiss on the Season 3 episode “The One with the Flashback.”
The “Whole Nine Yards” star wrote that by the time Aniston had begun dating Brad Pitt in 1998, he had “long since gotten over her” and figured out how to interact with her “without it being awkward.”
Screening of “Serving In Silence: The Marg Cammermeyer Story”
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Perry joked that Aniston’s “deafening lack of interest” led to his feelings dissolving.
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Perry, 53, had also moved on with other romantic relationships – most notably briefly dating Julia Roberts in 1995. He dumped Roberts, 54, after two months of dating because he was “certain that she was going to break up with me.”
“Why would she not? I was not enough; I could never be enough; I was broken, bent, unlovable. So instead of facing the inevitable agony of losing her, I broke up with the beautiful and brilliant Julia Roberts,” he confessed.
Actor Matthew Perry and actress Julia Roberts
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Perry also candidly discussed his brief romance with icon Julia Roberts.
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In addition to his massive rise to fame, Perry was also battling drug and alcohol addiction. He had to go to rehab twice during the sitcom’s filming from 1994-2004.
Perry admitted that after filming the iconic moment where his character, Chandler Bing, married Monica Geller, played by Courteney Cox, he was “driven back to the treatment center … in a pickup truck helmed by a sober technician.”
Matthew Perry’s “The End Of Longing” – Photocall
