Courteney Cox admits Matthew Perry 'struggled for a while' amid Friends pressure

Courteney Cox has admitted her co-star Matthew Perry "struggled for a while" with the pressure of Friends.

In the reunion special last year, Perry told Cox and their co-stars Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer and Matt LeBlanc that he felt like he was "going to die" if the live studio audience didn't laugh at his jokes and would "freak out" if a line fell flat.

Discussing his comments in an interview with The Sunday Times, Cox admitted her onscreen love interest struggled with that pressure when the show was on air between 1994 and 2004.

"That was a lot of pressure he put on himself. That's a lot to think how much he relied on that for his own self-worth," she said, before adding, "He's just struggled for a while. I think he's doing great now."

Perry was in and out of rehab a few times in the late '90s and early 2000s to treat his addiction to alcohol and painkillers. He is expected to open up about his substance abuse issues in his upcoming memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, which will be released in November.

Elsewhere in the interview, Cox was asked if she ever gets fed up with talking about Friends, and she replied, "No, that was such a huge part of my life. It was such a lucky situation that I fell into the show, and I went through so many things in those 10 years."

Speaking about her close friendship with Aniston and Kudrow, the actress added, "We're just really comfortable. We've shared so much history together and we laugh. Lisa's laugh alone is the most infectious laugh I've ever heard. It's adorable. We have deep conversations, we also have silly times."