Matthew Perry has recalled the terrifying moment his heart stopped beating for five minutes.
The Friends star said he was left with eight broken ribs as doctors desperately attempted to save his life after a mix in medication stopped his heart.
He was set to star in Adam McKay's Netflix hit Don't Look Up, but was forced to pull out following the medical emergency.
Matthew, 53, was set to play a Republican journalist in the film and had even shot a scene with Jonah Hill, according to Rolling Stone.
He details the fall-out in his upcoming memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing where he talks openly about his alcohol and drug addiction battle.
Describing the gig as the "biggest movie I’d gotten ever", Matthew was in rehab in Switzerland at the time of filming.
He describes the moment he lied to doctors about having 'severe stomach pain' in a bid to get prescribed hydrocodone, a pain-killing drug.
"In fact, I was ok," he wrote. "It still felt like I was constantly doing a sit-up, so it was very uncomfortable, but it wasn’t pain."
Doctors wanted Matthew to undergo surgery to put "some kind of weird medical device" in his back to help with his 'discomfort'.
The night before his surgery, he took his hydrocodone and right before his operation the doctors administered propofol, an anaesthesia drug.
The combination of drugs proved fateful, stopping his heart completely.
"I was given the shot at 11am. I woke up eleven hours later in a different hospital. Apparently, the propofol had stopped my heart. For five minutes," Matthew recalls.
He added: "It wasn’t a heart attack – I didn’t flatline – but nothing had been beating.
"I was told that some beefy Swiss guy really didn’t want the guy from Friends dying on his table and did CPR on me for the full five minutes, beating and pounding my chest."
"If I hadn’t been on Friends, would he have stopped at three minutes? Did Friends save my life again," he asks after admitting the strenuous CPR broke eight of his ribs.
The pain in his ribes meant he was unable to continue filming, an exit he calls "heartbreaking".
In a recent interview with The New York Times, Matthew admitted that fighting his addiction led to him shelling out seven figures as he fought to overcome his demons.
He said: "I've probably spent $9 million or something trying to get sober."
