‘Friends’ Star Perry Enters Drug Center

Actor Matthew Perry of the television sitcom “Friends” voluntarily checked into a treatment center to battle an addiction to prescription pain medication, his publicist said Tuesday.

Perry, 27, is in the “early stages of chemical dependency,” publicist Lisa Kasteler said, but she declined to say what medication he had been taking or why he was taking it.

She also would not say where Perry had gone for treatment.

Perry, who portrays the character Chandler Bing in the popular show, is asking that “his privacy to be respected while he completes this treatment,” Kasteler said.

Perry also starred in the recent film “Fools Rush In.”