Netflix's three-part Matthew Perry documentary traces addiction, a 2018 near-death and Friends fame

A three-part portrait without the Friends cast

Netflix released The One About Matthew Perry on Tuesday, 27 October 2026, a three-part series directed by Mary Robertson. It arrives one day before the third anniversary of the actor's death on 28 October 2023, when he was found unconscious in the jacuzzi of his home in Pacific Palisades. The coroner attributed the death mainly to the acute effects of ketamine. Rather than a true-crime account, the series follows Perry's life from his early career to the rehabilitation stints that punctuated it. The Friends co-stars did not take part; the testimony comes from his sister, Mia Perry Bowick, and close friends including Roger Castillo and David Pressman.

Breaking into Friends

Perry was in his early 20s, short of money and waiting for a break when he was cast as Chandler Bing. According to the documentary, he had been helping acquaintances rehearse the part for a pilot called LAX 2194 before he saw himself in the character and decided to audition. Castillo took him to that audition. Warren Littlefield, then president of NBC Entertainment, recalls that the decision came almost at once:

“It took less than thirty seconds to feel the, 'Oh yeah, this is it, this is Chandler.'”

Friends premiered in 1994 between Mad About You and Seinfeld and quickly became a hit. In an old interview used in the film, Perry describes the prayer he made when he was struggling for a break:

“But I made a prayer and I said, 'God, you can do anything you want to me, just please make me famous.'”

Injury, painkillers and money

The documentary dates his dependence on painkillers to a 1997 jet-ski accident at Lake Mead during a break in filming the romantic comedy Fools Rush In. His alcohol problems, which had surfaced in adolescence, returned as well. Estimates put the total he spent on attempts to overcome his addictions at about seven million dollars. In 2018 a bowel perforation linked to opioid use nearly killed him, and doctors gave him only a 2% chance of survival, as his sister recounts in the final episode. The chart below places these moments alongside the later legal cases.

The drug supply case

Salvador Plasencia, a physician, and drug dealer Jasveen Sangha have been sentenced, and four other people have also received sentences in the case. Sangha was sentenced to 15 years in prison in April 2026 for supplying the doses that caused Perry's death. The series spends only about ten minutes of its last episode on this network of suppliers. It does not focus on the legal proceedings that followed the death.

Family and the wedding episode

In an interview with People on 21 October 2026, Mia Perry Bowick recalled that the family feared for him while the Chandler and Monica wedding was being filmed for the seventh-season finale, which aired in May 2001. He was then struggling with alcohol and medication dependence, and she said he wanted a partner and children. He never married and had no children. After Perry's death, the Friends co-stars issued a statement describing the cast as a family, but they did not take part in the documentary.