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Matthew Perry’s Official Cause of Death Determined: ‘Friends’ Alum Died From the Acute Effects of Ketamine
Matthew Perry‘s official cause of death has been determined to have been from the acute effects of ketamine, according to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office in a final autopsy report released on Friday, December 15.
The beloved Friends alum died at age 54 on October 28 from an apparent drowning in his home jacuzzi. Paramedics were called to his Pacific Palisades house after his assistant found him unresponsive and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
An autopsy was performed by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner the day after Perry’s death, but the initial results were inconclusive pending a toxicology report, as the 17 Again star’s cause of death was “deferred” until further tests were concluded.
Perry’s final Instagram post five days before his death showed him relaxing in his hot tub at night with a set of headphones on. “Oh, so warm water swirling around makes you feel good? I’m Mattman,” Perry captioned the October 23 photo, with a play on his love of Batman.
While prescription medication was reportedly found at his home by investigators, no illegal drugs were discovered.
Perry had been an open book when it came to his struggles with substance abuse over the years, which he laid bare in his 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing.
The actor revealed he spent $9 million in trips to rehab and other attempts to get sober. Perry explained how he started drinking heavily before Friends debuted in 1994 and he moved on to using cocaine, opioids and other substances.
Of his alcohol abuse, Perry wrote, “I could handle it, kind of. But by the time I was 34, I was really entrenched in a lot of trouble. But there were years that I was sober during that time. Season 9 was the year that I was sober the whole way through. And guess which season I got nominated for best actor? I was like, ‘That should tell me something.’”
At one point during production, Perry was taking 55 Vicodin a day and weighed only 128 lbs. “I didn’t know how to stop,” he recalled. “If the police came over to my house and said, ‘If you drink tonight, we’re going to take you to jail,’ I’d start packing. I couldn’t stop because the disease and the addiction is progressive. So, it gets worse and worse as you grow older.”
“You can track the trajectory for my addiction if you gauge my weight from season to season,” the actor explained in his book, writing, “When I’m carrying weight, it’s alcohol; when I’m skinny, it’s pills. When I have a goatee, it’s lots of pills.”
The Fools Rush In star nearly died in 2018 when he suffered from a gastrointestinal perforation at age 49 that led to his colon bursting due to opioid overuse and was given a two percent chance of survival. Perry was in a coma for two weeks and spent five months hospitalized. After being released, he had a long road to recovery, needing to use a colostomy bag for nine months.
At the time of his death, his close friend and pickleball coach, Matt Manasse, said the actor was in “good spirits” and “he seemed like he was in a really good place and a happy place.”
“Pickleball, I think was an outlet for him,” he shared. “It was something that he became obsessed with, and that was his new healthy addiction, and he loved it.”
Perry played the sport on the day of his death, but left his game early due to feeling tired. Friend Billy Bush wrote in a tribute the following day, “Lately his greatest joy was the game of #pickleball (he didn’t like the name but he LOVED the game). He played every day and sometimes twice. It regulated his days. I spoke to the woman he played with this morning and every morning. She is in shock, adored Matt,” adding, “She said he had been fatigued today and over the past week. A little more than usual. He played for one hour then went home.”
