United States: An autopsy revealed that Friends actor Matthew Perry accidentally overdosed on ketamine, which is why he was discovered dead in a jacuzzi at his Los Angeles home in October.
Perry, who portrayed the witty Chandler Bing in the hit US sitcom, died on October 28 at the age of 54 from the “acute effects” of the sedative, with drowning serving as a secondary cause, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office said on Friday.
The autopsy report listed heart disease and “the effects of buprenorphine,” a medication used to treat opioid abuse, as additional contributing factors.
Perry had been receiving ketamine treatment for anxiety and depression; however, he took his last known infusion more than a week before his passing, which would have been enough time for the drug to have left his system. Perry was transparent about his struggles with alcohol and opiate addiction. “The exact method of intake in Mr. Perry’s case is unknown,” the report said.
Perry’s system contained no traces of alcohol or other drugs like heroin, cocaine, or fentanyl, according to the autopsy.
In his memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, published in 2022, Perry talked about using ketamine every day for a while to help with depression, pain, and addiction.
“Has my name written all over it – they might as well have called it ‘Matty’,” he wrote of the drug.
During the ten-year run of Friends, from 1994 to 2004, Perry rose to become one of the most well-known actors in the world.
The sitcom, which also starred David Schwimmer, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, and Matt LeBlanc, traced the highs and lows of six young New York singles.
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