Why Matthew Perry and Molly Hurwitz broke up before engagement? Inside the ‘Friends’ star's struggle with addiction
Our favorite Chandler Bing aka Matthew Perry is engaged to girlfriend Molly Hurwitz! The 'Friends' star who is lucky “to be dating the greatest woman on the face of the planet at this time”, could not help gushing over the development in his personal life. 51-year-old Perry and 29-year-old Hurwitz began dating in 2018. The couple kept their romance under wraps for a long time. However, on May 1 this year, the couple briefly called it quits hinting at a tumultuous phase in their relationship. A source close to the couple then revealed, "It happened very recently. It was very amicable, but they have both decided to go their separate ways.”
The exact reason for the breakup was not known. However, it hinted that Perry’s girlfriend was reportedly sick of his callous lifestyle and mental health issues. As per reports, Perry had a hard run in life after 'Friends' where he struggled with alcoholism, drug addiction and repeated admission to rehab. Now as the two are happily engaged, here we shed some light on the ups and downs in their relationship and what possibly triggered the breakup.
Matthew Perry’s health struggles
The Friend’s star may have been the prankster on the show, but in reality, he was going through a rough phase in life starting from the early 1990s when he was shooting for rom-com. “I wanted to be famous so badly,” the actor said in the New York Times interview in 2002. “You want the attention, you want the bucks, and you want the best seat in the restaurant.” That desire to gain fame and fortune came with his witty and sarcastic role of Chandler Bing on 'Friends' in 1994.
Perry may have garnered praise and adulation for his role. However, his private life was full of loneliness as he resorted to alcohol in the late 1990s.“From an outsider's perspective, it would seem like I had it all. It was actually a very lonely time for me because I was suffering from alcoholism,” he confessed. Perry's looks had started to alter way back in 2000, while the show was still on the air and the reason for it was thought to be poor health and addiction.
A jet ski accident in 1997 came like a double whammy for the actor as he was prescribed Vicodin after which he became addicted to drugs too. “It wasn’t my intention to have a problem with it,” he said in 2002 on drug addiction. “But from the start, I liked how it made me feel and I wanted to get more.” At this stage, many health problems also began plaguing the actor. His weight fluctuated drastically due to pancreatitis. On top of that, the addictions landed Perry in rehab in February 2001 for addiction to Vicodin, methadone, amphetamines and alcohol. Perry once also mentioned that he didn't remember three years of filming the show. "I was painfully, painfully hungover. Then eventually things got so bad I couldn't hide it, and then everybody knew," he told People. There even came a point when Perry felt he “was going to die the next day.” After entering rehabilitation faculty, the actor somehow got control over his life and learned to have a “happy life without alcohol or drugs”.
However, in August 2018, his health issues flared up confining Perry to the bed for three months with gastrointestinal perforation. “You don’t recover from what I went through overnight. It’s a day-to-day process," he said at the time.
Was Molly Hurwitz sick of his mental health issues?
Perry has been romantically linked to many high-profile stars such as Yasmine Bleeth and Julia Roberts in the mid-90s and Lizzy Caplan whom he dated for six years between 2006 and 2012.
He again found love in 2018 with a talented manager named Molly Hurwitz. The couple was initially hush-hush about their relationship but finally opened about it in December 2019 to the public. Reports indicate that Hurwitz was by Perry’s side when he was menaced by alcoholism and addiction that affected his mental health. In February 2020, days after Perry had finally joined Instagram, Hurwitz shared a Valentine’s Day message for him. “Second year being my valentine, but his first as an Instagram influencer,” Hurwitz reportedly wrote on her Instagram account, which is locked.
However, it seemed that Perry was still pestered by something in his life despite having a loving girlfriend. He was apparently sad as seen from his April 2020 Instagram post where he wrote, “Why is today especially hard?”. After the vague question, some reports suggested that his post was about girlfriend Hurwitz.
Later reports suggested that Hurwitz reportedly got tired of dealing with her boyfriend’s mental health issues. She reportedly offered Perry advice on how to seek help on his deteriorating condition, but her suggestions were ignored which purportedly resulted in a breakup. However, nothing can be confirmed on what triggered their split in May 2020. Now as the two have kept aside their differences and are moving ahead in life with their engagement, it seems like love has again blossomed for the two after the doleful times.