Matthew Perry was determined to stay ‘clean and sober’ in his final years before tragic death, friend insists

MATTHEW Perry was determined to stay clean and sober in the final years of his life, his friend has exclusively told The U.S. Sun.

The Friends star's longtime barber, Pierre Johnson Jr., said the 54-year-old was trying to quit smoking and was focusing on exercising more.

Pierre, who worked with Matthew from 2018 to 2022, reflected on Matthew's health after the actor was found dead in his hot tub on Saturday.

He said Matthew, who struggled with drug and alcohol addiction, was trying to be more active.

Pierre added that the TV star was determined to fully quit smoking, which the barber felt was his “last bad habit” after kicking his addictions. 

“He had a home gym inside of his place in the Palisades, and I knew he’d taken up pickleball again,” Pierre told The U.S. Sun.

“It was his last bad habit, he was so keen to quit, it’s why he took up pickleball. 

“It was enjoyable, you didn't need to be some gym-crazy person in order to have fun doing it. And it's cardio."

He went on: “His fingers were brown from smoking. He even went to see a hypnotist to try and quit. Often we smoke because we’re stressed. 

“On his last day, he played pickle ball, that’s the lungs. I wonder if that had something to do with [his death]."

In Matthew’s memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, he wrote about smoking up to 60 cigarettes per day at one point, and how his doctor warned him he could die. 

Pierre said he never saw Matthew drink an alcoholic beverage and believed he was clean and sober in his final years after opening up fully about his struggles in his memoir. 

“His story was changing lives, and I was so glad to see that he was on the other side of [his addiction]," he said.

“To hear that he overcame, that’s what everyone wants. He was ticking them off."

Elsewhere in his interview, Pierre admitted that Matthew didn't want to be alone but struggled to find a woman he could trust and that the actor was planning his TV comeback.

ADDICTION STRUGGLE

Matthew spoke candidly about battling addiction in his memoir.

In 2018, at the age of 49, he suffered a gastrointestinal perforation as a result of his extreme opiate usage.

He was given just a two percent chance of living after being comatose for two weeks.

Matthew revealed that at the height of his addiction, he was consuming about 55 Vicodin pills a day and weighed just 128 pounds.

He did a stint in rehab but continued to struggle.

Matthew was found unresponsive in the jacuzzi at his Los Angeles home by his assistant on Saturday afternoon.

Hours earlier, he had played racquet sport pickleball with a female friend, who revealed the star had felt unwell and “fatigued” for the past week.

Matthew, who played Chandler Bing on Friends, was believed to have drowned, but first responders were scrambled for a cardiac arrest.

Authorities found anti-depressants, anti-anxiety drugs, and a drug for chronic pulmonary disease at his home.

An initial drug report from his autopsy came back negative for methamphetamine and fentanyl, according to .