Matthew Perry’s ex-girlfriend René Ashton recalls realising his drinking ‘was a problem’ as she tried to intervene
Warning: This article contains discussion of drug and alcohol addiction, which some readers may find distressing.
Matthew Perry’s ex-girlfriend René Ashton broke down in tears as she opened up about his substance abuse issues in a new Netflix documentary.
The One About Matthew Perry, which dropped onto the streaming platform on Tuesday (27 October), chronicles the ‘Hollywood success, outspoken advocacy and tragic death’ of the beloved Friends star, as told by his family and inner circle.
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Perry died in October 2023 at the age of 54. He was found in the hot tub of his Los Angeles home, and it was later discovered that the actor's death was caused by the acute effects of ketamine.
After Perry’s death, five people were convicted in connection with the incident, including the ‘Ketamine Queen’ Jasveen Sangha, who sold the drugs that killed him, and his personal assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, who injected the actor with the unprescribed drug.
Throughout his life, the actor was very open and candid about his decades-long struggle with alcohol and drugs, which began in the late ’90s, during the height of his Friends fame.
Ashton, 56, who dated Perry for a year in 1999, got tearful as she recalled: “Obviously I saw a lot of his drinking. I knew it was a problem. We discussed it frequently, and I called his dad, and I said, ‘You need to help him’.
“He’s like, ‘You called my dad?!’ and I said, ‘Yeah. You need help’.”
She paused before adding: “My response was always ‘I will take you any way you come,’ until I couldn’t. Even though we stayed in contact, we never got back together.”
Elsewhere in the documentary, Ashton revealed how she met the actor at a celebrity hockey game, during season five of Friends.
She recalled: “Our first date we went to dinner, and then after dinner he wanted to go to this divey, karaoke bar in Hollywood. They were closing, and so he slipped them a $100 bill, and they turned the machines back on. He sang me a song, it was very cute. He sang ‘Carolina on my mind’.
“I was immediately attracted to him. The chemistry was instant. We were able to have conversations where no words were spoken.”
Ashton said that while Perry was ‘on top of the world on Friends’, ‘being out with him in public was hard’ because ‘no-one cared about his privacy’.
She added: “I don’t think he had privacy. The most fun times that we had were with just his friends at his house or at one of their houses. We’d play games, or like, at Courtney and David’s wedding.”
Recalling a more emotional moment from their relationship, she said: “I realised it was becoming serious when he said he loved me for the first time.
“Except that didn’t go very well because he didn’t say ‘I love you’. We were on the couch, and he sat up and looked at me, and I was like, ‘Oh I think he’s gonna say it’. And he said, ‘I luff you’.
“It took a minute for him to explain to me why that was a better thing than saying ‘love’ because of the movie Annie Hall. There’s a line in there that Woody Allen says, ‘I luff you’.”
Ashton went on to reveal how Perry always wanted a successful career, as she explained: “When you think of Matthew Perry, you think he had it all, but Matthew was concerned about what’s next. How am I gonna maintain this? How am I gonna supersede this? Matthew wanted very much to be a serious actor.”
So, he was excited to get a part in the 2000 movie The Whole Nine Yards and to get to work with Bruce Willis.
However, Jonathan Lynn, who directed it, spoke in the doc about how he noticed Perry’s issues with addiction.
He recalled: “One day he came in looking really terrible. I thought Matthew was in denial about his problem with drinking and pills.
“If anything went wrong or he felt like it wasn’t working, he would immediately turn to alcohol or pills.”
The director later heartbreakingly said: “I felt I was looking at the wreckage of what could have been an extraordinarily successful career and a very happy man, but. But you know, he was a he was a prisoner of his addiction.”
The One With Matthew Perry is available to stream now on Netflix.
If you want friendly, confidential advice about drugs, you can talk to FRANK. You can call 0300 123 6600, text 82111 or contact through their website 24/7, or livechat from 2pm-6pm any day of the week.
Please drink responsibly. If you want to discuss any issues relating to alcohol in confidence, contact Drinkline on 0300 123 1110, 9am–8pm weekdays and 11am–4pm weekends for advice and support.
Topics: Matthew Perry, Netflix, Friends, Entertainment, Celebrity
Madison Burgess