Matthew Perry candidly admitted that he wanted to seek out lasting love and change into a father only a 12 months before his tragic death.
The “Friends” icon — who was found dead at his home in Los Angeles on Saturday at age 54 — told People in Oct. 2022 that he had long feared intimacy and pushed away women who got too near him.
Perry had various high-profile romances over time, dating stars including Julia Roberts and “Mean Girls” actress Lizzy Caplan. Nevertheless, he admitted that he was often the one to finish a relationship.
“That was me afraid,” he admitted within the extraordinarily intimate interview. “I manifest something that’s fallacious with them, after which I break up with them. But there can’t be something fallacious with everyone. I’m the common denominator. I left first because I believed they were going to annihilate me.”
The actor’s 27-year battle with drug and alcohol addiction also derailed his love life. He did 15 separate stints in rehab between the mid Nineteen Nineties and early 2020s.
But Perry told Those that he had finally “gotten over” his “fear” of affection after becoming sober in May 2021.
“I’m not run by the fear I was once run by so all the things’s form of different,” he said of sobriety. “I’m feeling more confident and I’m not afraid of affection anymore, so the subsequent girl I am going out with higher be careful.”
Perry said that achieving sobriety in his mid-50s had given him a renewed deal with finding someone to share his life with.
“The thing that’s modified about me is I even have little interest in hanging out with someone that I don’t know or someone that I’m not that into,” he stated. “The following person I actually take seriously is someone that I’m going to be in love with and never be scared by the things that used to scare me.”
However the actor admitted that he had strict stipulations a couple of future girlfriend, and was not excited about anybody without their very own source of cash, saying he had been “burned” by women only excited about his pocketbook.
Perry said a “dealbreaker” for a relationship could be a lady “who I begin to think is in it for the cash.”
“It happens more often than you think that,” he proclaimed.” Any person who has their very own wealth is a fairly key component for me… Any person who’s self-supporting. In every way, but monetarily especially because I got burned a number of times by women who wanted my money, probably not caring about me.”
Meanwhile, the perennial bachelor said he was also looking forward to becoming a father, saying: “I feel I’d be great. I actually do. I grew up with plenty of little kids around me, and that’s probably why, but I can’t wait.”
Perry’s most high-profile romance was with Roberts, whom he dated from 1995 to 1996.
The “Pretty Woman” superstar even made a guest appearance alongside Perry within the second season of “Friends.” (The late actor died on what was also Roberts’ 56th birthday on Saturday.)
Meanwhile, the actor went on to have a six-year romance with Caplan, whom he dated from 2006 to 2012.
Perry subsequently had a string of short relationships before falling for literary agent Molly Hurwitz. They became engaged in Nov. 2020, but split in June the next 12 months.