Maggie Wheeler Calls ‘Friends’ Costar Matthew Perry ‘Brave and Extraordinary’ for Detailing His Addiction Struggles in Book

usmagazine.com:

Janice loves Chandler! Maggie Wheeler revealed she “read every word” of Friends costar Matthew Perry’s memoir — and couldn’t be more proud.“I lost my brother to drug addiction, so I’m no stranger to how difficult a journey it is and a struggle it is,” Wheeler, 61, exclusively told Us Weekly on Tuesday, January 24, while promoting her partnership with International Delight for its new Friends Manhattan Hazelnut Mocha creamer. “I’m so proud of Matthew and how hard he’s fought for his life.”The New York native — who played Perry’s character Chandler’s on again, off again girlfriend Janice on the NBC series — noted there were “so many details” in the 53-year-old actor’s memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, that she “wasn’t aware” took place.“He has had struggles that have been so dark and so unbearable and he’s such a survivor to still be here and to be out and sharing his story with the world,” Wheeler told Us. “I think it’s brave and extraordinary and I’m certain that he’s helping people by doing it.”Perry, who portrayed Chandler Bing for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004, detailed his battle with addiction both on the long-running show and off in his book, which hit bookshelves in November 2022.“You can track the trajectory of my addiction if you gauge my weight from season to season — when I’m carrying weight, it’s alcohol; when I’m skinny, it’s pills,” he wrote in the memoir. “When I have a goatee, it’s lots of pills.”The Fools Rush In actor recalled drinking for the first time at age 14 and getting addicted to pain pills following a jet ski accident on a movie set in 1997.

After decades of struggles and spending “upward of $7 million trying to get sober,” Perry came out triumphant and sober by 2001.Through