Matthew Perry Net Worth

Matthew Perry is popularly known as Chandler Bing—an affable, sarcastic, and a bit insecure fictional character from Friends. Due to his contractual obligation with another sitcom LAX 2194, produced by Fox, Matthew Perry wasn’t originally considered for the sitcom Friends – which was originally named Six of One. Fortunately, Fox didn’t pick up the series in turn, allowed Perry to become one of the main casts on Friends.

Shortly after the premiered of Friends in 1994, it became an instant worldwide hit, due to its immense popularity, each cast member of Friends was able to demand and was paid US$1 million per episode in 2002, and this doesn’t include bonuses and ongoing royalties. In 2003, Perry was ranked 30 on Forbes’s Top 100 Celebrity rich list.

During his youth in Canada, Perry was an avid interest in Tennis. He was nationally ranked as one of the top junior players. Throughout Matthew Perry’s career with Friends and after, he appeared in many TV shows and films, including The Whole Nine Yards starring alongside Bruce Willis.

Aside from his wealth and fame, Perry, like some other Hollywood celebrities, also had personal demons to battle, namely drug and alcohol abuse. His addiction to vicodin, an opioid medication used to reduce severe pain, led him to alcohol abuse and other drugs. The severe addiction caused Perry to lose three years of memory during his 10 years career with the sitcom Friends. Fearing death, Perry confessed to the production team of Friends and cast members that he needed help.

What is Matthew Perry’s Net Worth?

Matthew Perry’s career in the show business has spanned over 34 years. He received roles here and there during his early career while trying to find his footing in Hollywood. In 2018, an American business and financial news Business Insider, reported Matthew Perry’s net worth in 2018 was $80 million. His main source of wealth came from NBC’s sitcom Friends, which debuted from 1994 to 2004 and totaled 10 seasons and 236 episodes. In July 2022, Matthew Perry’s net worth is in the neighborhood of US $120 million.

When Perry debuted on Friends in 1994, his pay for the first season and five other cast members was $22,500 per episode. When the sitcom became immensely popular worldwide in the 2000s’, the six cast members banded together and demanded a pay rise. By 2002, each cast member was paid $1 million per episode for just a 30-minutes time slot – it became the largest pay ever for a sitcom.

During the contract negotiations, the cast members considered a very shrewd business move where they would receive syndication profits. After the program had ended in 2004, Warner Bros. Television which owns the rights to Friends, still reportedly earned over $1 billion a year from syndication revenue and streaming deals even 18 years later. According to the contract agreement, each cast member will earn 2 cents in royalties from the show’s syndication revenue. In other words, in the reruns of Friends, each main cast member of Friends will pocket $20 million in annual income.    

Who is Matthew Perry?

The American-Canadian Matthew Langford Perry was born on August 19, 1969, in Williamstown, Massachusetts, U.S. Perry has dual citizenship – he is both a citizen of the U.S. and Canada.

His mother, Suzanne Marie Morrison, is a Canadian journalist and former press secretary to former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, the father of the current Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, who happened to be a classmate of Matthew Perry in high school. Perry’s father, John Bennett Perry, is an American actor and a former model. His parents divorced before Perry even reached his first birthday. In 1981, his mother married a Canadian-born broadcast journalist Keith Morrison who is currently a correspondent for Dateline NBC.

After his mother remarried, they moved to Canada, where Perry was raised in Ottawa, Ontario. There he attended a private school Ashbury College in Ottawa. While in high school, Perry was a talented tennis player and nationally top-ranked junior tennis player in Canada.

Matthew Perry has 4 half-siblings from his mother’s side: Caitlin, Emily, Willy, and Madeleine Morrison, and a step-sister Mia Perry from his father’s side. 

Career

At 15 years of age, Perry moved to L.A. to live with his father and pursue a career in acting. In 1987, Perry graduated from a college preparatory school, The Buckley School in Sherman Oaks, LA.

Perry originally intended to further his higher education at the University of Southern California but canceled his plan when he was offered a leading role on an American sitcom TV series Second Chance, later, it was changed to Boys Will Be Boys after the 13th episode. In 1988, Perry’s debut on the silver screen was in the film A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon.

After continuously appearing in many guest roles on TV, in 1990, Perry was finally given a chance to become a regular cast on a CBS sitcom Sydney. In 1993, Perry landed another starring role on the ABC sitcom Home Free. After the previous short-lived sitcom, which was only aired for 11 episodes, he’s preparing for a new pilot sitcom Fox’s LAX 2194.

During this time, the previous writers and producers of Home Free sitcom Marta Kauffman and David Crane, who Perry had worked with, successfully convinced NBC to air a new sitcom originally titled Six of One to what later we all known as Friends. Perry planned to secure an audition, but his contractual obligation with Fox’s LAX 2194 had the writers and producers of Friends written him off. Luckily the sitcom LAX 2194 has stalled. This had untied Perry and ultimately given him a lead role on Friends as Chandler Bing.

Matthew Perry’s long dream of being famous is realized. Friends became an international phenomenon, making him and other cast members overnight celebrities.

Friends was aired from 1994 to 2004 for a total of 10 seasons and 236 episodes, Perry did not miss a single episode. Friends earned the sitcom many prestigious nominations, including the American Comedy Awards, Primetime Emmy Awards, Teen Choice Awards, and many more.

Its immense popularity allowed all six main cast members to demand exorbitantly higher pay, as much as $1 million per episode for a 30-minute time slot.  From the show, each main cast member on Friends earned approximately US$90 million or nearly $10 million per season. Additionally, this does not factor in their bonuses and royalties. Even after the show has retired since the last episode 18 years ago, each cast member was earning around $20 million per year from the reruns.

Perry appeared in many films and TV shows between the show and after, such as 1997’s Fools Rush In, 1998’s Almost Heroes, 1999’s Three to Tango, and 2000’s The Whole Nine Yards, followed by its sequel in 2004 The Whole Ten Yards. He also appeared in many other TV series, including a legal comedy-drama Ally McBeal. On March 1, 2012, Perry portrayed Ryan King, a sportscaster who tries to move on after the death of his wife through the help of mandatory therapy sessions in the comedy pilot Go On.

After the end of Friends, he made a directorial debut in the comedy-drama Scrub. Followed by another comedy-drama, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, from 2006 to 2007. Perry also made a British TV debut in the comedy program The Dog Thrower.

Personal Life

As of 2022, 53-year-old Matthew Perry is still a bachelor. Perry is known to date gorgeous Hollywood celebrities, including Baywatch actress Yasmine Bleeth in 1995. He dated Julia Roberts for a year from 1995 to 1996 and was a star of Mean Girls Lizzy Caplan for 6 years from 2006 to 2012.

In 2018, he had abdominal surgery for ruptured bowel, which he had to spend three months at a hospital to recover.

In 2020, it’s revealed he got engaged to a literary manager, Molly Hurwitz. In June 2021, he told an American weekly magazine, People, that he had called off the engagement and stated ‘things weren’t working out.’

Alcohol and Drug Issues

In 1997, Perry experienced severe pain and was using Paracetamol as a remedy to soothe the pain. Due to this, his weight fluctuated greatly from losing significant weight to ballooned size.  As a result, he became addicted to vicodin, where he entered rehab for the first time and completed a 28-day program. 

Matthew Perry managed to stay clean for a brief period, but in 2000 he was hospitalized with pancreatitis from alcohol abuse and his addiction to Vicodin, methadone, and amphetamines.

The relapse forced him again into rehab in 2001. Due to the severe addiction issues, Perry does not remember 3 of the 10 years of his time on Friends. According to a sobriety app, Perry has been sobered since 2001.

After Perry kicked his addiction he became a proponent of drug courts – their programs aim to provide a sentencing alternative of treatment combined with supervision for people living with serious substance use. Perry traveled to Capitol Hill to lobby Congress members to support funding for this particular program.

In May 2013, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy awarded Perry a Champion of Recovery.

Real Estate

In 2007, Perry purchased a 9,300-square-foot LA penthouse for $20 million. In 2020 it was put on the market for $35 million and eventually was sold for $21.6 million. He decided to sell the penthouse because he was spending a lot more time in New York City and Malibu.

In 2021, he sold his Malibu beach house for $13.1 million, which he originally purchased for $11 million in 2011.

After he loaded off a few of his properties, Perry downsized to a $6 million cottage in Pacific Palisades in the Westside region of Los Angeles.

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