JESSE WATTERS: The 'Friends' phenomenon doesn't exist in American culture anymore

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Jesse Watters: Why Matthew Perry's death is making such an impact

FOX News host Jesse Watters reflects on the life and legacy of ‘Friends’ actor Matthew Perry on ‘Jesse Watters Primetime.’

FOX News host Jesse Watters unpacks the legacy of the hit TV show "Friends" and actor Matthew Perry's struggle with addiction on "Jesse Watters Primetime."

JESSE WATTERS: The "Friends" phenomenon doesn't exist in American culture anymore. The only thing anybody watches together is football. The rest of entertainment is fractured into thousands of different shows on hundreds of different platforms available on demand on multiple devices. There is no shared cultural media experience anymore. Sixty-two million people used to watch "The Cosby Show" each week together. Ninety-three million Americans watched the final episode of "Cheers." It's almost half the country experiencing the same thing at the same time. "Seinfeld" was huge, "Friends" was huge. And today, America lacks that kind of campfire that the country sits around and enjoys together. 

MATTHEW PERRY WANTED TO BE REMEMBERED FOR HELPING THOSE WITH ADDICTION, NOT JUST FOR HIS ‘FRIENDS’ ROLE

Now, this is one of the reasons people feel isolated and disconnected within their very own country. People often feed these feelings with drugs. And Matthew Perry was one of them. He abused drugs and alcohol his entire life. Matthew Perry felt abandoned by his parents, he said. They were divorced and his father was out of the picture. He saw his dad, John Bennett Perry, more on TV than in person growing up. Perry said this made him feel deeply insecure and drove his addictions. And he said he started drinking heavily as a teen. At the beginning of the "Friends" franchise, he got into a jet ski accident and got hooked on Vicodin. Perry said he couldn't remember most of seasons 3 to 6. 

'Friends' actor Matthew Perry passed away at his Pacific Palisades home at the age of 54. ((Getty Images))

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He abused everything from Xanax to Oxy to cocaine, methadone, Vicodin. He drank liters of vodka. He said that when he was his skinniest on "Friends," it was the painkillers. He said when he was the heaviest, it was because of the drinking. And Perry said when he had a goatee, that's when he was on a lot of pills. In 2018, he was in a coma for two weeks after an opioid overdose burst his colon. Three years later, his heart stopped beating in Switzerland and doctors broke eight ribs resuscitating him. Perry was reportedly sober for the last two years and recently had been posting about Batman. Posting Batman signs, Batman movies. He started calling himself "Mattman." Just like Batman, he'd been traumatized as a child and was now trying to help people.

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The actor had been to rehab 15 times, had 14 surgeries, had spent $9 million trying to get sober. But Matthew Perry, like millions of Americans abusing drugs to fix their pasts and search for meaning. Over 100,000 Americans die from drug overdoses each year and the numbers keep going up. Our society's broken. We've lost our faith. We've lost our family. And now we're losing our friends.

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