Yahoo Home Matthew Perry Memoir Hits No. 1 on Amazon Charts Four Days After Release
If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Rolling Stone may receive an affiliate commission.
Matthew Perry’s new memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, started making headlines even before its release, with bombshells about the Friends star’s decades-long struggle with addiction, as well as the actor’s odd attacks on Keanu Reeves (which he subsequently apologized for).
More from Rolling Stone
Kim Kardashian's Beats Earbuds Are Back in Stock, Just in Time for Gift-Giving Season
Lift Her Up: Rihanna's Savage X Fenty Show Vol. 4 Is Here and Streaming Online for Free
But it seems like the media spotlight is helping drive sales, as the tell-all has shot to the #1 spot on Amazon’s best-selling nonfiction chart, and the #2 spot on the memoir chart less than a week after its release. Perry’s book dethrones Jennette McCurdy’s recent memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died, which had occupied the #1 spot for weeks.
If you want to pick up the book for yourself, Perry’s memoir is selling quickly but still available on Amazon as of this writing, either in Kindle, as a hardcover, or in audiobook format (narrated by the actor himself).
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir
Covering his journey from childhood through Friends-era super-stardom and his current life of sobriety, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir centers on Perry’s decades-long abuse of opioids and alcohol. “Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty. And I should be dead,” begins the memoir, before detailing anecdotes of a burst colon and a heart stoppage just a few years ago — both resulting from his drug usage.
At one point during filming for Season 3 of Friends, Perry says he was taking 55 Vicodin a day: “I had to have 55 every day, otherwise I’d get so sick,” he writes. “It was a full-time job: making calls, seeing doctors, faking migraines, finding crooked nurses who would give me what I needed.” In a recent New York Times interview around the memoir’s release, Perry shared that he’s “spent $9 million or something trying to get sober” over the years.
But addiction isn’t the book’s sole focus. Perry recounts his love life with partners including Friends co-star Courteney Cox, Julia Roberts, and Molly Hurwitz, as well as his friendship with Jennifer Aniston, who confronted him about his drug use: “To be confronted by Jennifer Aniston was devastating,” writes Perry.
Perry also came under fire recently for a series of excerpts apparently aimed at Keanu Reeves. One passage comes as the actor grappled with River Phoenix’s death: “River was a beautiful man, inside and out — too beautiful for this world, it turned out. It always seems to be the really talented guys who go down. Why is it that the original thinkers like River Phoenix and Heath Ledger die, but Keanu Reeves still walks among us?” After major backlash for these comments, Perry apologized, telling People, “I’m actually a big fan of Keanu. I just chose a random name, my mistake. I apologize. I should have used my own name instead.”
Head to Amazon to buy Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir now, where the hardccopy costs $20.99 and the Kindle version costs $14.99. The Perry-narrated audiobook is available for free with an Audible subscription (start a free trial here).
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir
Best of Rolling Stone
