Healthy-looking Matthew Perry is seen with female friend

Matthew Perry stepped out last week for a relaxing afternoon in Los Angeles just as he has revealed his opioid addiction nearly took his life. 

DailyMail.com spotted the Friends star looking healthier than he has in years as he ran errands with an unidentified female friend. The actor has been single since splitting with fiancée Molly Hurwitz back in June 2021.

The 53-year-old wore a gray top, white Jordan shorts, and yellow Converse sneakers with trendy sunglasses, while his mystery friend wore a yellow floral dress, sunglasses and white sandals.

The pair were seen walking in a parking garage before they hopped in the car and drove away.  

The notoriously reclusive actor is breaking cover to promote his long-awaited memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, which hits stands November 1.

Speaking about the book to People Magazine, he detailed how his drug and alcohol addictions left him with a 2% survival after opioids caused his colon to burst, putting him in a two-week coma. 

Now sober, the beloved actor best known for playing hapless Chandler Bing, is detailing his decades-long battle to rid himself of the disease of addiction.

DailyMail.com spotted Matthew Perry in Los Angeles last week as he stepped out for a relaxing afternoon. This comes as the notoriously private actor revealed he nearly died of alcohol and drug addiction

The Friends star looked healthy as he ran errands with an unidentified female friend

He said: ‘I had to wait until I was pretty safely sober — and away from the active disease of alcoholism and addiction — to write it all down. And the main thing was, I was pretty certain that it would help people’ – pictured in September 2021, (left)

The notoriously reclusive actor is breaking cover to promote his long-awaited memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing , which hits stands November 

Matthew’s mystery friend wore a yellow floral dress, designer sunglasses and white sandals

The 53-year-old looked healthy and wore a gray Henley top, white Jordan shorts, and yellow Converse sneakers with trendy sunglasses

Matthew revealed he had to use a colostomy bag for nine months, has had 14 surgeries on his stomach and has been to rehab 15 times in a bid to get clean. 

Speaking about the book to People Magazine Wednesday, he detailed how his addictions left him with a 2% survival after opioids caused his colon to burst, putting him in a two-week coma and spending months in the hospital

He said, ‘The doctors told my family that I had a 2 percent chance to live. I was put on a thing called an ECMO machine, which does all the breathing for your heart and your lungs. And that’s called a Hail Mary. No one survives that.’

The actor added, ‘I wanted to share when I was safe from going into the dark side of everything again.

‘I had to wait until I was pretty safely sober — and away from the active disease of alcoholism and addiction — to write it all down. And the main thing was, I was pretty certain that it would help people.’

Matthew said that his alcohol addiction began to surface while he was starring on Friends at age 24.  

He was ‘entrenched in a lot of trouble’ by the time he was 34. He said there were years during that time in which he was sober and in fact, he was sober throughout the whole of season nine, the year he got nominated for Best Actor. 

At one point during his Friends career, he admits he was taking 55 Vicodin a day and was down to 128 pounds but ‘didn’t know how to stop.’ 

He said the disease has gotten worse and worse  and noted his Friends cast mates ‘were understanding, and they were patient.’

Matthew said the disease has got worse and noted his Friends cast mates ‘were understanding, and they were patient’ (pictured second from left with the cast) 

Matthew now says: ‘I’m pretty healthy now,’ though he is choosing not to say how long he has been sober but is ‘counting each day.’ 

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His stomach is covered in scars from his 14 surgeries and he said they serve as a reminder to stay sober. 

He said his therapist has told him that he may have to have a colostomy bag for the rest of his life if he takes drugs again, which helps him avoid relapsing. 

The actor checked himself into rehab during his time on Friends once in 1997 and again in 2001.

Matthew famously told the New York Times in 2002, one year after getting sober: ‘When [fame] happens, it’s kind of like Disneyland for a while. 

‘For me it lasted about eight months, this feeling of “I’ve made it, I’m thrilled, there’s no problem in the world”. 

He told the Hollywood Reporter in 2015: ‘I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in my life. I learned a lot from my failures.

‘But the best thing about me is that if an alcoholic comes up to me and says, “Will you help me stop drinking?” I will say, “Yes, I know how to do that.”‘ 

‘And then you realize that it doesn’t accomplish anything, it’s certainly not filling any holes in your life. I didn’t get sober because I felt like it. I got sober because I was worried I was going to die the next day.’

‘It’s no accident that Chandler is a guy who is trying to deter his own human emotional feelings with laughter. That’s what I did for years. I’ve tried to palm myself off as being a jokester, kind of like hanging out with me is kind of like a vacation. But that could only take me so far.’

He did his third stint in rehab in May 2011, when a representative for the star said it was to prevent a relapse.

The actor has said he is currently sober but doesn’t want to say how long he has been sober for – only that he ‘counts the days’ – pictured promoting his book in September  

Pictured in 2019: Perry has stayed under the radar in recent years. He caused concern when he looked disheveled in his first sighting for almost two years that year 

In 2021, the cast of Friends reunited on screen for the first time in 17 years after being delayed due to the pandemic.

Friends fans expressed their concern at the time after Matthew appeared to slur his speech in a promo for the special.

The actor stammered and stared in the clip, even slurring together his words at one point.

Though his speech was stilted, Matthew’s physical appearance was on the healthier side.

His castmates were able to hide any of their concerns, as David Schwimmer and Matt LaBlanc giggled and smiled at their troubled co-star 

But fans were quick to voice their worries.

‘Just saw People interview and can’t believe how Matthew Perry looks like… seriously it breaks my heart,’ one fan wrote on Twitter.

‘It pains me to see Matthew Perry like this, he just seems off, gazing at the void, speaking slowly,’ wrote another.

In 2021, the cast of Friends reunited on screen for the first time in 17 years – fans expressed their concern at the time after Matthew appeared to slur his speech in a promo for the special

Ben Winston, who directed Friends: The Reunion, said of those commenting on Perry’s appearance during the HBO Max special: ‘He was great. People can sometimes just be unkind. I wish they weren’t. 

‘I loved working with him. He’s a brilliantly funny man and I thought he had some great one-liners in the show. I felt just happy and lucky to be in his presence and directing him on something like this.’

After having his first taste of alcohol at the age of 13, he continued drinking and was described opioids in 1997 to cope with the pain after suffering a jet ski accident.

Speaking to People in 2013, he recalled taking his prescribed pills without question: ‘I did and I felt better than I ever felt in my entire life. I had a big problem with pills and alcohol, and I couldn’t stop.’

He checked into rehab that same year in 1997, but said: ‘You can’t have a drug problem for 30 years and then expect to have it solved in 28 days. Getting sober is a really hard thing to do.’