In Netflix’s new three-episode documentary, Matthew Perry’s sister speaks on screen for the first time — and she does not soften a thing.
The new Matthew Perry documentary, “The One About Matthew Perry,” is built around a voice viewers have never heard at length before. Perry’s sister, Mia Perry Bowick, speaks out on screen for the first time in the three-episode Netflix doc, which covers the “Friends” star’s life, career, addiction struggles and death, per Page Six. Perry died at 54 on Oct. 28, 2023.
None of his “Friends” co-stars — Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer — opted to participate, per Page Six. Instead, family and lifelong friends tell the story, and Bowick carries much of it.
She remembers a brother who believed fame was coming. As “Friends” became a phenomenon, former NBC executive Warren Littlefield recalled the cast asking, “Us? This is happening to us?” — while Perry was like, “Of course this is happening!” per Page Six. Perry himself, in archival footage in the doc, described Chandler Bing as “very similar to [him]” — “a guy who was sort of trying to distract everybody from how miserable he was all the time by being funny.”
The generosity stories are pure Perry. Bowick said her brother was “always incredibly generous with his money,” and recalled leaving a restaurant at Christmas when she was 15 as a valet drove up in a red Ford Mustang convertible and asked for her by name. Perry told her, “Yeah, that is your car — Merry Christmas!” per Page Six.
But the doc does not stop at the warm version. Bowick said Perry spent $7 million trying to get sober — “that’s how seriously he took his disease” — and that around Seasons 5, 6 and 7 of “Friends” he was having “a very hard time managing his substance use” while filming, taking just enough to feel OK without appearing high, per Page Six. She first learned of his addiction as a teenager, from tabloid headlines in a grocery store, before her parents confirmed he was in rehab.
His 2018 near-death emergency is the hardest passage. Bowick recalled being called to the hospital as Perry lay in a coma after his colon ruptured, thinking, “This is it, he’s not waking up.” Doctors put him on an ECMO machine, his fingertips were turning black, and, she said, “He aged 20 years in three months,” per Page Six.
The funeral account will stay with viewers. Bowick said the five “Friends” co-stars walked in together at the private funeral on Nov. 3, 2023, walked up to the casket holding hands and stood around him crying, per Page Six. She also recalled laughing mid-funeral because she “felt Matthew with me” — as if he had whispered, “How f–ked up is this?” — and thought, “Oh my God, there he is! Making me laugh at the most horrible moment.”
She is equally direct about betrayal. Perry’s longtime assistant Kenneth Iwamasa was among five people arrested after his death, and was sentenced in May 2026 to three years and five months for helping administer the fatal ketamine shots, per Page Six. “The level of betrayal we all felt,” Bowick said, adding the family had “really liked him and really trusted him.” Perry’s death was ruled the “acute effects of ketamine” with accidental drowning as the manner, per the autopsy account in Page Six.
“The One About Matthew Perry” is now streaming on Netflix, per Page Six.
The 247 Take — The co-stars stayed silent and the sister told the truth — which is why this documentary hurts more, and matters more, than another round of Chandler clips ever could.
Sources: Page Six
