Kelly Osbourne has opened up about how Matthew Perry helped her when she was at a ‘really, really horrible place’.
Tributes have been paid to the Friends actor after he sadly died last month at the age of 54, with his body found in the hot tub at his LA home.
While his official cause of death has not yet been determined, former chief medical examiner Dr Michael Baden has since claimed it will be due to ‘some unknown drug’.
On the latest episode of the Osbournes Podcast, the mom-of-one detailed the sweet gesture the Chandler Bing star made after sensing her nerves at her first Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting.
‘One time I was at a really, really horrible place, I was 19 years old and it was the first time I had ever been in treatment,’ she recalled.
‘It was the very first AA meeting I ever went to and it was the one in the Palisades on Sunday in the morning.
‘I was s**tting myself about being in there and there were so many people, and I hated it. I didn’t think that I belonged, and I felt worthless, everything.
‘I just wanted to run because I knew where I was, and I knew how to get home from there.
‘He came up to me, because I guess I was visibly struggling. He handed me a 60-second chip and he was like, “Just hold this for 60 seconds. If you can get through that, you can get through the next 60 seconds.”
‘I was like, “Okay”. And I kept that, I have it somewhere still. I just remember him being so kind.’
During his time on Friends, Perry struggled with addiction and anxiety – which he described in his 2022 memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing.
In a candid interview last year, the 17 Again actor explained that his substance abuse issues began as a teenager, drinking beer and wine when he was 14, before moving to vodka and prescription drugs.
At one point, he was taking 55 Vicodin – a strong painkiller – a day while filming, and didn’t ‘know how to stop’.
He explained that he was taken to receive treatment shortly after filming one of his biggest scenes on the series – Chandler and Monica Geller’s wedding in season seven.
Discussing the shoot, he told the New York Times: ‘I married Monica and got driven back to the treatment center — at the height of my highest point in Friends, the highest point in my career, the iconic moment on the iconic show — in a pickup truck helmed by a sober technician.’
Following Perry’s death, there has been a wave of mourning for the late Hollywood icon, with his Friends castmates penning heartbreaking tributes.
However, fans have slammed comedian Hans Kim over a viral joke he made about their loss.
The comic, who has 50,000 followers on TikTok, posted a clip of his standup routine to the video site, in which he appeared to make light of Perry’s death.
‘Sad to hear that the great Matthew Perry died alone in a hot tub,’ he said. ‘For a guy on a show called Friends, he could have used a couple.’
Discussing the program’s famous opening, showing the cast – including Jennifer Aniston, Matt LeBlanc, David Schwimmer, Lisa Kudrow and Courteney Cox – dancing in a fountain, Kim added: ‘Who knew the opening credits were his cry for help.’
Followers were outraged by the quip, branding it ‘too soon’ and in bad taste.
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