John Mulaney says he ‘really identified’ with Matthew Perry’s memoir

John Mulaney recently opened up about why he’s “thinking about” Matthew Perry following his 2023 passing.

Late Friends star Matthew Perry was always open about his struggles with addiction, the issues becoming public in 1997 after a jet ski accident lead to a stay in rehab. The late 90s and early 2000s seemed to be the peak of the star’s addiction issues, but he admitted in his memoir and in interviews that his journey through sobriety wasn’t always smooth sailing.

Like many other people who have struggled with their own similar issues, comedian and Big Mouth star John Mulaney found Perry’s candid recollection of his addiction issues relatable, telling Variety, “I really identified with his story. I’m thinking about him a lot.”

Like Matthew Perry, John Mulaney struggled with addiction in the public eye, making something that Mulaney describes as “just a disaster” even harder to navigate. In 2021, Mulaney made an appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers and opened up about being “mad” when he walked into his star-studded intervention and realized what was going on.

Because Mulaney’s intervention and stay in rehab were so heavily scrutinized, he said he felt like he had to talk about them in his next comedy special, Baby J, which was released to Netflix in April 2023. Speaking to Variety, he explained his decision to work his addiction into his standup routine while still being the comedian his fans expect:

"Going to rehab and a lot of other things had become public knowledge, and I felt there was no way to start doing stand-up again without going through this. I also had a lot to say about it. It had been an extremely eventful time, and the goal from the beginning was to do this as funny as I could make it — not as impactful as I could make it, not to pause for dramatic effect. I just wanted it to be a little wilder and put you in my very confident, demented brain during the time of addiction."

The 2023 passing of Matthew Perry has been hard on Friends fans, his former co-stars, and celebrities who used him as inspiration for their own acting, comedy, or sobriety journeys. In his memoir, the legendary comedic actor spoke about his own sobriety and said that he wanted to wait until he felt securely away from “the dark side” and “safely sober” before writing about his struggles. On his motivation to write down his struggles in memoir form, Perry said, “I was pretty certain that it would help people if I did.”