Matthew Perry was a very big part of my growing up and gay realization. He was not a big hunky razor-cheekboned guy, but he was charming, funny and had a kind of offbeat beauty, in the way John Cusack or Andrew McCarthy had when they were young. Just an adorable softness, you wanted to hold him and stroke his head.
The early death was not unexpected but it’s still a shock. Very few stars in Hollywood destroyed themselves as publicly as Matthew Perry. This was a man with an income of $20 million annually from residuals but it couldn’t buy happiness.
There are going to be tons of articles in the next couple of days pondering the root of his unhappiness and I’m going to offer one which will probably never be printed in any of them:
I have Autism Spectrum Disorder, and throughout my life I have found that a lot of the male stars I was attracted to had behaviors that would also suggest they may be on the Spectrum (the aforementioned Cusack, whom I also was also obsessed with as a teen.) It is a known fact that people on the autism spectrum gravitate towards each other, even the undiagnosed ones, like a little secret race or society. Look how Christopher Nolan casts his films.
Perry never married or had children (like Cusack) which is common of Spectrum people. In addition to his devastating drug addiction, of which people on the Spectrum suffer at a higher percentage, he also suffered from a very public eating disorder during Friends, of which people on the Spectrum also suffer at a higher percentage. He is best known for creating a beloved character, and people on the Spectrum may create artificial personas despite struggling with their own identity (think of Peter Sellers.) In fact, he got Chandler Bing because he read the character in a way no other actor did, it was so different from what everyone else who read for the role did, he basically created the character we know and loved at his audition.
But what clinches it for me was his autobiography. Remember how I said people on the Spectrum can sense each other? In the biography, Perry made several bizarre and offensive unprovoked remarks about Keanu Reeves. Keanu Reeves is almost certainly on the Spectrum. Perry, whether diagnosed or undiagnosed, may have felt unusually drawn to Keanu; and if he was diagnosed, he may have been jealous that Keanu has had a stellar three decade career at the top of the A list and appears to be a genuinely kind, beloved person, while being on the Spectrum. And Perry could not be.
There’s not a doubt in my mind Perry had Autism Spectrum Disorder, was probably undiagnosed for it most of his life, and trying to cope with it was too insurmountable him, or, if he was diagnosed, it was too late. The life expectancy of people on the Autism Spectrum is lower than the general population.
Look at his eyes. Wide set. They had the shimmer, before it went out. And that’s why I think I was in love with him as a teen. It was his eyes. It was all there in his eyes.
Rest in peace.
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