Matthew Perry dropped a major bombshell in his memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing. Turns out, he dumped Julia Roberts — yes, the Julia Roberts — because he thought she’d dump him first. Wild, right?
In his book, Perry goes deep into the heart of his 90s romance with the Pretty Woman star, explaining why it ended after just two months. “Dating Julia Roberts had been too much for me. I had been constantly certain that she was going to break up with me,” he revealed.
Despite the fame, the chemistry, and the red carpet moments, Perry couldn’t shake the feeling that he just wasn’t enough. He felt like “broken, bent, and unlovable,” convinced he’d never measure up to the gorgeous and brilliant Roberts. Instead of facing the “inevitable agony of losing her,” he took matters into his own hands and ended things.
But before we get too carried away, let’s rewind. How did these two even end up together in the first place? Well, Perry went full-on romantic to land Roberts as a guest star on Friends. Following some advice from Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman, Perry wooed Roberts with a bouquet of three dozen roses and a card that read, “the only thing more exciting than the prospect of you doing the show is that I finally have an excuse to send you flowers.”
And, boom, that did it. Roberts agreed to appear on the post-Super Bowl episode of the show. But Perry didn’t stop there — he flooded her with faxes, like a lot of faxes. “Three or four times a day I would sit by my fax machine and watch the piece of paper slowly revealing her next missive,” he wrote. And don’t get it twisted—her faxes weren’t just cute; they were captivating. “She was so smart—the way she strung sentences together, the way she saw the world.”
After hundreds of faxes, a romantic New Year’s Eve in Taos, and a whole lot of Hollywood charm, they officially became a couple. But here’s the twist: Perry’s love story wasn’t all roses. Addiction was creeping in, and despite being in one of the most high-profile relationships of the 90s, he felt like an imposter. “I was not enough; I could never be enough,” Perry wrote. That sense of inadequacy haunted him throughout their brief romance.
And so, when things got too real, Perry pushed her away. It wasn’t that Julia Roberts wasn’t amazing (obviously she is) — it was that Perry felt like he was living a life he couldn’t sustain. “So instead of facing the inevitable agony of losing her, I broke up with the beautiful and brilliant Julia Roberts.”
After their split, Perry couldn’t escape the ghost of his decision. He even watched Roberts win her Oscar for Erin Brockovich from his rehab room. “I was incredibly happy for her,” he wrote. “As for me, I was just grateful to have made it one more day.” Talk about a tragic irony — losing the love of your life while rooting for her from a distance.
Perry’s heartbreak wasn’t just about losing Roberts; it was about losing himself. His memoir doesn’t just tell a story of love gone wrong; it’s a raw look at his battle with addiction and the overwhelming feeling of not being enough.
For more such stories, check out Hollywood News
Must Read: When Camille Vasquez Refused To Work With Kanye West: “It Was About Principle, Not Controversy”
Follow Us: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Youtube | Google News