Matthew Perry talks in detail for the first time about last year’s life and death struggle against addiction and his ongoing fight to stay clean.

The Former addict famously relapsed on the set of his new movie ‘Serving Sara’. But Matthew Perry says he’s swappeddrink, drugs and junk food for a healthy new lfestyle.

Pay no attention to the rumours, says Matthew Perry. At age 33, single and finally free from the dependence on painkillers which plagued him for much of his twenties, his name has been linked lately with those of desirable women all over the world. there’s Elizabeth Hurley, his co-star in the forthcoming romantic movie Serving Sara; his good pal tennis ace Jennifer Capriati; and, just last week, Bridget Jones’ Diary star Ren?e Zellweger. If you believe everything you hear, Matthew has been a busy boy.

So has he? As he revealed to Now last week: “I can’t do anything without rumours, it seems, but the thruth is, right now,I don’t have a girlfriend - thanks for reminding me. Elizabeth? She’s a beautiful, smart, witty woman, we worked well together and it was really nice meeting her. But, for the record, I didn’t father her baby!”

“Jennifer’s a good friend and we have fun together. But we’re just friends.” He stops and - being Matthew Perry - can’t resist cracking a joke: “In fact, it’s weird but true… Jennifer is the father of Elizabeth’s baby!”

Of the six young singletons who became famous in Friends back in the early nineties, the three women are now married and Matt LeBlanc is engaged to beautiful model and mother-of-two Melissa McKnight. Only Matthew and his good buddy David Schwimmer remain single. “But it’s not as though David and I are these die-hard single people”, he points out. “I don’t go punching my fist in the air, shouting: ‘Yeah!! We’re still out there!’ I don’t think it’s a great thing we’re single, I think it’s kind of pathetic.”

“David and I are still looking for Miss Right as much as anyone is. The fact that we haven’t found her yet is more random than anything else Maybe we’re working too hard to go out and look.”

Jokes aside, he admits that much of his energy in the last few years has been taken up with fighting his dependence on drugs. He first sought help for his addiction to painkillers in 1997 and, early last year, the filming of Serving Sara was interrupted while he checked himself in to a clinic to address the problem once and for all.

He is now, he says, drug-free and intending to stay that way. “It has been pretty well documented”, he says slowly, “that I had to leave the set of Serving Sara because I was getting pretty sick and needed to go somewhere and change my life. Which is what I did.”

“I was lucky that the people I was working with understood that and didn’t look at me like I was doing a bad thing. They knew I was in trouble and that I needed to go and take some time to really focus on it. I was able to do that and come back to finish the movie, so it all worked out really well.”

Matthew is considered to be one of Hollywood’s wittiest stars - his Friends character Chandler Bing was reputedly based on the real-life Matthew - but he confesses that, too often in the past, the laugh-a-minute exterior was hidden a person who was confused and insecure. “I’ve always liked making people laugh”, he says. “Most of the time, it’s a really nice way to be.”

“But I also used humour as a tool. If there was any emotional stuff going on, I’d crack a joke in an attempt to deflate the situation. Which made for a really great sitcom character but, unfortunatelly, if you try to move that into your real life, it just becomes too much. You can’t keep that up the whole time. You get exhausted.”

He admits that, in the past, his wisecracking has wreaked havoc on his love life. “It’s great at the start of a relationship - I always find that if you can make a girl laugh on the first and second dates, then you’re doing pretty well. But I also found that, on the seventh date, if you made one more joke she’d want to kill you! So i(ts a question of finding the right balance.”

Balance, he says, is what he’s now in the proces of learning. “As I get older - especially in the last couple of years, during which my life has changed so much - I’m trying to be more comfortable in those emotional situations, trying to listen to people and talk to them instead of just going for the jokes.”

“It all comes down to bringing myself down to size. I’ve been trough some dark times, but thing have become brighter in the last year and a half, as a result of me not taking myself too seriously and taking myself more seriously - all at the same time.

These days, he says, he’s living a healthy life in all sorts of ways. “I don’t drink or do drugs anymore - that’s the biggest change, of course. Taking a lot of time to exercise and eating a lot less cheeseburgers helps. By taking away every piece of pleasure I had in my life, I’ve become a healtier person.”

“Seriously, I’m feeling better now than I ever have. I’ve taken up tennis again, which is so much fun. I used to play as a kid - in fact, when I was 13 or 14, I played in national tournaments. I gave it up about 15 years ago, but 18 months ago I decided to get back into it, dedicate myself and play as well as I can. The results have been great.”

All in all, it sounds as though he’s ready to turn some of those romantic rumours into reality. “I hope so”, he agrees, serious for once. “I’ve had my share of ups and downs in relationships over the years, but I’m a romantic at heart, so I live in hope.”

“I think water seeps to its own level, meaning that if you’re in a place in your life then you’ll attract other people who’ll also be in a tough place. But I’m not in that dark place anymore.”

“I’m living my life on a daily basis, as a pretty happy guy looking for the future. Hopefully, I’ll attract people who live their life in the same way.”

“It’s funny, because of Friends a lot of beautiful women want to know me. But I’m looking for someone who enjoys her life and is happy. That’s the most attractive quality you can find in a person.”