Matthew Perry thought he was incompetent for several years as a young man. The 53-year-old actor’s book, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir, comes out Tuesday, and there’s yet another story about how his addiction affected his life. Perry began drinking at 14. In the years since, he has begun experimenting sexually but only after consuming “six beers beforehand”, out of nervousness. As a result he “couldn’t perform”. So, at just 15, she thought she had “a bird that didn’t seem to want to work.” He wrote, “I failed to make the association between drinking and my private parts dysfunctional. And no one could find out. No one. So I walked around the planet thinking sex was for other people for a long time. Years . Sex sounded like a lot of fun, but it wasn’t in my arsenal. That meant in my mind, and at least in my pants, that I was congenitally incapable.” Perry later learned that wasn’t the case when he started dating Tricia Leigh Fisher, the actress/singer daughter of Eddie Fisher and Connie Stevens and half-sister of the late Carrie Fisher. Perry, who was 18 at the start of the romance, remembered Tricia, now 53, as beautiful and charming. He also cured him of his misdiagnosis of impotence. Matthew Perry and Tricia Leigh Fisher step out together in Los Angeles on November 15, 1987. (Photo: Barry King/WireImage) Perry said to keep his secret from coming out, he initially told Tricia that he wanted to wait until he was married to have sex, citing his Catholic upbringing. But two months later, he claimed Tricia took matters into her own hands when they were alone in his studio apartment. He said he was full of fear, that his secret would be revealed, but he was also in love. He confided in her “the whole shameful story,” including that “he was incapable and always would be. That it was no use… But I desperately wanted her not to leave me too.” Trisha assured him, calmly and simply, that not being able to play would “never happen again” and led him into the bedroom. “Sure, pure glory for two whole minutes,” he quipped. The story continues He said thanks to Tricia, “a beautiful woman who deserved better,” he lost his virginity. “Impotence hasn’t been a part of my vocabulary since – just like he promised it wouldn’t be. Everything about me, at least physically, is working fine.” And how did he repay Tricia? By “sleeping with almost every woman in Southern California,” he added. Perry’s book details several stories of relationships and romances, including kissing his co-star Valerie Bertinelli in Sydney in 1990, when she was still married to Eddie Van Halen. (The rocker passed out in the room.) He wrote about dating Julia Roberts on Friends — and then broke up with her for fear she’d dump him first. He went on a date from hell with Cameron Diaz after Friends, and also said he hit it off with Gwyneth Paltrow. And while those romances are unpleasant, Perry’s point in writing the book details his decades-long struggle with alcohol and opioid addiction. He was taking 55 pills a day at the height of Friends. He almost died in 2018 after his colon exploded. This did not stop him from using. He had another near-death experience two years later. He has been sober for the past 18 months. Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir is out now.
