Matthew Perry’s sister has said that their father would have been involved in the new Netflix documentary about the late Friends actor had he been well enough.
Earlier this week, the three-part doc The One About Matthew Perry was made available to stream on the global platform.
The documentary features contributions from many key figures who knew and loved the star, including his sister, Mia Perry Bowick, in her first interview since his death in October 2023, at the age of 54.
In the documentary itself, Mia claims that their dad, John Bennett Perry, “has been ill for a long time”, and as a result, he couldn’t take part in the limited series.
“[He’d have loved] to be able to participate in helping to share the story of his son,” she says (as was first reported by Us Weekly).
“But unfortunately, he’s just not well enough to do that. It really fell to me to be able to talk about the Perry side of the family.”
John and Matthew shared the screen multiple times over the years, most notably in the film Fools Rush In and a memorable episode of the medical comedy Scrubs.
However, John is not the only notable absentee in The One About Matthew Perry.
In the lead-up to the documentary’s release, director Mary Robertson made it clear that she invited Friends stars Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer to be interviewed, though they all declined.
“We know the Friends cast loves Matthew and is grieving Matthew,” she pointed out during an interview with The New York Times. “We did approach them about participation. They decided not to participate.”
Netflix’s official synopsis for The One About Matthew Perry says: “Told through intimate testimonies from close family and friends, this documentary event reveals the real Matthew Perry – generous, funny, vulnerable, larger than life – and the battles he fought to become the man behind the icon.
“A raw record of a life lived in full, and the honesty that became his greatest legacy.”
The One About Matthew Perry is now available to stream on Netflix.
