By STEVE DENNIS
Guilt-ridden Friends star Matt LeBlanc has confessed to The National Enquirer how close he came to betraying his wife — after getting drunk with a naked stripper at a nightclub awash with drugs.
In a frank interview, the heartthrob actor admitted cavorting with the exotic dancer while on a motorcycle trip with five buddies in British Columbia.
“The stripper was all over me,” Matt said. “I acted like a fool in allowing myself to be led astray and placed in such a horrible situation and I feel ashamed.
“As a family man, I’ve asked myself, ‘How could I have been so stupid and naïve to get myself into such a situation with a stripper?'”
In shocking scenes, the actor spent his night of debauchery sprawled out in a dimly-lit corner of a seedy strip joint, drinking heavily, with his hands all over an exotic dancer. Eyewitnesses say his out-of-character behavior was fueled not only by booze but cocaine — claims Matt dismisses.
The actor, 37, is now in hot water at home with loving wife Melissa, the mother of his 18-month-old daughter Marina.
To add to his woes — and to partly explain his wild antics in the nightclub at the end of June — his Friends spin-off show Joey is facing a make-or-break television season this fall after disappointing ratings for the series last year.
Anyone who knows Matt and model Melissa understands the depth of their love for one another — and how that devotion has helped them cope with the medical problems of their daughter, who has a rare brain disorder.
The couple recently celebrated their second wedding anniversary. They wed on May 3, 2003 in Hawaii. But their love and devotion was tested when Matt told Melissa the sordid details of his reckless night at the all-nude strip club in Victoria, British Columbia, on the night of June 28.
His remorse about what transpired after drinking to excess was clear and washed white across his unshaven face as he spoke to us from his dressing room on the set of NBC’s Joey, where the crew was gearing up to start filming on August 15.
The vast room is full of photos. Most noticeably, dotting almost every wall, are images of his wife, two step-children Tyler, 11, and Jacquelyn, nine, and baby Marina.
It is his clear devotion to his family that makes his seedy episode in a strip-joint even harder to fathom.
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