Near-fatal ODs and love faxes to Julia Roberts: What Matthew Perry’s memoir reveals
Matthew “Matt” Perry and his wife, Julia Roberts, were married twice before he took his divorce from Julia to the Supreme Court. This time, he won.
Now, with his story out and his new memoir, “The Decent Dancer,” ready to be released in April, the story of how the self-proclaimed “tomboy” turned the highest court in the land into the highest court in America, in Perry’s own words, is a pretty riveting one.
In the memoir, dubbed “Matthew Perry: An American Original,” Perry recalls an American dream he had in his own bedroom, that one day he would be invited to have a ball in the Rose Garden at the White House and meet his presidents.
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“I wanted to be able to tell my kids: I did it, and look at me all the way to the White House,” Perry wrote, before describing his “self-discovery.”
Before that dream came true, Perry had his own reality: He was gay.
“A gay black man married a woman once divorced,” Perry writes. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that my story was not all that far removed from the lives of the many gay African-Americans who live in the inner cities.”
But as many black and gay people will tell you, Perry’s story isn’t at all like others’.
For one, Perry had to deal with the worst case of homophobia he’s ever met. Another big difference? Perry wasn’t raised to be a tomboy.
Perry grew up in rural North Carolina. He had a twin brother, Mark, who died from a rare disease when he was 7. Perry was also the product of a highly dysfunctional family.
He was sent away to boarding school for two years, after which the family moved to California, where his mother became engaged to a man whom she had never married, and with whom she has
