Matthew Perry wrote about receiving ketamine treatments to “to ease pain and help with depression,” nearly one year before his death.
“Ketamine was a very popular street drug in the 1980s. There is a synthetic form of it now,” the late actor penned in his 2022 memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing. “Has my name written all over it — they might as well have called it ‘Matty.’”
Perry referred to the drug as a “giant exhale,” revealing that he would “disassociate” while receiving treatment.
Perry died on October 28 at age 54 from “the acute effects of ketamine,” according to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s toxicology report, which was released on Friday, December 15.
In his book, Perry also noted that he felt like he was “dying” when going through the ketamine treatments, but explained why he would “continually sign up for this s–t.”
“It was something different, and anything different is good,” Perry wrote. “Taking K is like being hit in the head with a giant happy shovel. But the hangover was rough and outweighed the shovel.”
Overall, the Friends alum declared: “Ketamine was not for me.”
Friday’s report also listed drowning, coronary artery disease and the effects of buprenorphine — a drug used to treat opioid use — as contributing factors in his passing. Perry’s death was ultimately ruled an accident.
Perry was found unresponsive in the hot tub at his Los Angeles home on October 28, after authorities were called to the scene, responding to a call for a cardiac arrest. Following the initial autopsy report, Perry’s cause of death was “deferred,” per a report from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner on October 30. Further investigation into his passing was requested, along with a toxicology report.
Perry rose to fame playing Chandler Bing on Friends from 1994 to 2004. During his tenure on the famed NBC comedy, the actor struggled with substance abuse, something he wrote about in his memoir at length, revealing that he was “completely sober” for only one season of the show. The late star often referred to season 9 as “the one where everyone was talking about Chandler,” because of this.
“You can track the trajectory of my addiction if you gauge my weight from season to season — when I’m carrying weight, it’s alcohol; when I’m skinny, it’s pills,” Perry wrote. “When I have a goatee, it’s lots of pills.”
Prior to his sudden passing, Perry said that he wanted to be remembered as someone who “wants to help people,” despite his struggles.
“The best thing about me, bar none, is that if an alcoholic or drug addict comes up to me and says, ‘Will you help me?’ I can say yes and follow up and do it,” he said during a November 2022 appearance on the “Q with Tom Power” podcast. “When I die, I don’t want Friends to be the first thing that’s mentioned. I want that to be the first thing that’s mentioned, and I’m going to live the rest of my life proving that.”
