By Marisa Laudadio
12:00pm PST, Dec 16, 2023
A final photo
His death came as a huge shock to TV fans: On Oct. 28, 2023, "Friends" star Matthew Perry passed away at 54.
TMZ reported that the actor was discovered at his home in Los Angeles's Pacific Palisades area, where he appeared to have drowned — in the hot tub in his backyard.
On Dec. 15, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's Office — which conducted an autopsy — released the toxicology report which concluded that Matthew died from "the acute effects of ketamine," which is a drug that's sometimes used to treat depression and is also used recreationally. It caused both cardiovascular overstimulation and respiratory depression. The report revealed that the star had last undergone ketamine infusion therapy for depression and anxiety a week and a half before his death but that the ketamine found in his system when he died "could not be from that infusion therapy, since ketamine's half-life is 3 to 4 hours, or less," the report stated, according to TMZ.
The report further revealed that there was no evidence of alcohol, methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, PCP or fentanyl in his system and that contributory factors in his death included drowning, coronary artery disease and the effects of buprenorphine, a drug used to wean addicts off opioids. The report also revealed that Matthew smoked two packs of cigarettes a day, had COPD/emphysema and diabetes and that, according to interviews conducted by the medical examiner, had been sober for 19 months.
This picture of Matthew is one of the final pictures taken of him in public before his untimely passing: The Emmy nominee was photographed leaving an office building in Los Angeles on Oct. 3, 2023.
Keep reading for more info on the circumstances surrounding his death, to see a photo he posted of himself in his hot tub just days before he was discovered dead, details about his final hours and more…
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In his hot tub
"Oh, so warm water swirling around makes you feel good? I'm Mattman," Matthew Perry captioned this photo of himself in his hot tub on Oct. 23, 2023.
The photo was taken five days before he was found dead on Oct. 28 — in his hot tub, TMZ reported.
Keep reading for more info on his death…
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His last day
According to TMZ, on the morning of the day he died — Oct. 28 — Matthew Perry returned home after playing pickleball. He then sent his assistant on an errand. When the assistant got back to the house, he found the actor unresponsive and called 911, which sent first responders to the home on a cardiac arrest call.
Matthew loved pickleball and played four to five times a week, his coach and friend of two years, Matt Manasse, told NBC News, adding that the actor saw the sport as important to his sober life.
"I spoke to him last week, he was doing great, from what I heard and what I knew," Manasse told NBC News after news of Matthew's death made headlines. "That's the worst part about this. When I spoke to him he was chipper and upbeat — he was who he is, pumped about life."
Manasse "started with him about two years ago and I would bring all different types of people to come and play with him, and he would bring people too, and people dealing with recovery issues," he said.
Matthew, he added, "fell in love with the sport and he really wanted to use it for his recovery. It was sort of his new thing he could get behind and have on his calendar. Everyone who came in contact with him really cared about his recovery journey, and the flip side is he really cared about us. He cared about your success just as much as his own."
The morning he died
In the wake of Matthew Perry's tragic death, "Extra" host Billy Bush took to Instagram to honor the actor and share what he'd learned about the star's final hours after speaking to Matthew's pickleball partner.
"His legacy: hero to fellow sufferers. I think he won his battle with addiction but it was a Pyrrhic victory. It took everything out of him. To all of us he's the guy you wanted to be friends with and to women… the perfect boyfriend. Everyone had a crush on Chandler Bing. That role came up and he met that opportunity with precision. He nailed it and his mark is indelible," Billy began his tribute to Matthew, who's pictured here playing pickleball on Oct. 22, 2022 — almost a year to the day before he died.
"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," Billy shared. "I spoke to the woman he played with this morning and every morning. She is in shock, adored Matt… she said he had been fatigued today and over the past week. A little more than usual. He played for one hour [the morning of the day he died] then went home."
Billy concluded his post, "I'm grateful to have known him, admired his courage under the grips of a relentless disease and will pay tribute in a BIG way Monday on @extratv #ripmatthewperry."
Addiction battle
Matthew Perry's shocking and tragic death comes almost a year after he published his memoir, "Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing," which debuted on Nov. 1, 2022.
In the book, he laid bare his decades-long struggle with addiction.
Matthew, who revealed he'd been to rehab 15 times — also detailed how he almost died at 49. Publicly, it was believed he'd suffered a gastrointestinal perforation, but in truth, his colon burst from opioid overuse: He spent two weeks in a coma and was hospitalized for five months; he also used a colostomy bag for nine months and over time underwent 14 surgeries on his stomach.
"The doctors told my family that I had a 2% chance to live. I was put on a thing called an ECMO machine, which does all the breathing for your heart and your lungs. And that's called a Hail Mary. No one survives that," Matthew told People magazine while promoting his book, adding, "There were five people put on an ECMO machine that night and the other four died and I survived."
Struggling with 'Friends'
In Matthew Perry's 2022 memoir, he revealed that at one point during the decade-long run enjoyed by his hit show "Friends," he was taking 55 Vicodin pills a day and had dropped to 128 pounds. He shared that his "Friends" co-stars were always supportive of his efforts to get sober.
"It's like penguins. Penguins, in nature, when one is sick, or when one is very injured, the other penguins surround it and prop it up. They walk around it until that penguin can walk on its own. That's kind of what the cast did for me," Matthew told People magazine while promoting his book.
