Concern over the cause of Matthew Perry’s death emerged quickly following the announcement that he’d died. Perry released a memoir in 2022 titled, “Friends, Lovers, and the Big, Terrible Thing” in which he discussed some of his past extreme substance abuse. As he said in a 2022 interview available on YouTube, “I was taking 55 Vicodin a day, I weighed 128 pounds, I was on Friends getting watched by 30 million people — and that’s why I can’t watch the show, ’cause I was brutally thin.” Perry echoed himself in The New York Times, who quotes him as saying, “I would fake back injuries. I would fake migraine headaches. I had eight doctors going at the same time. I would wake up and have to get 55 Vicodin that day, and figure out how to do it.”
Perry told People in 2022 that he was “grateful to be alive.” “What I’m most surprised with is my resilience,” he continued, “The way that I can bounce back from all of this torture and awfulness.” At the time he didn’t disclose how long he’d been sober, but commented on his 14 stomach surgeries, saying, “My therapist said, ‘The next time you think about taking Oxycontin, just think about having a colostomy bag for the rest of your life.'”
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According to Perry’s autopsy report, the ketamine in his system that caused his death was not from infusion therapy for depression and anxiety, which he received a week-and-a-half before he died.
