Los Angeles police, along with the US Drug Enforcement Administration and the US Postal Inspection Service, are investigating why the 54yearold Friends star had so many drugs in his system.
Authorities have launched an investigation into how Friends actor Matthew Perry got a supply of ketamine in October 2023. On Oct. 28, Perry, 54, was pronounced dead by paramedics called by an aide who found him lying in his hot tub. His autopsy, released in December, found that the amount of ketamine in his blood was within the range used for general anaesthesia during surgery. The report stated that this was the main cause of death and that there was no foul play and it was an accident. The coroner said drowning and other medical issues were contributing factors. TMZ first reported the investigation.
Close associates of the coroner told coroners investigators that he was undergoing ketamine infusion therapy. This decades-old surgical medicine has seen a huge increase in use in recent years as a treatment for depression, anxiety and pain. But the medical examiner said Perrys last treatment a week and a half ago did not explain the ketamine levels in his blood. The drug is usually metabolized within hours. Perry, a psychiatrist and an anesthesiologist who worked as a primary care physician, was being treated by at least two doctors, according to the medical examiners report. No illegal drugs or paraphernalia were found in his house.
Perry became one of the biggest television stars of his generation as Chandler Bing alongside Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer on NBCs megahit sitcom from 1994 to 2004. In other cases, drug-related celebrity deaths have resulted in prosecutions of suppliers. After rapper Mac Miller died of an overdose of cocaine, alcohol and fake oxycodone containing fentanyl, two men who supplied him with fentanyl have been convicted of drug distribution.
One was sentenced to 17 years and the other ten years. Two doctors and model and reality TV star Anna Nicole Smith are charged with conspiring to get her prescription drugs before her 2007 death, but they are not charged with causing her fatal overdose. All charges were ultimately dismissed except for one false fraud charge against one doctor.
After Michael Jackson died in 2009 from a fatal dose of propofol, a drug intended for use only during surgery and other medical procedures rather than for insomnia that the singer sought, his doctor, Conrad Murray, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2011. Murray maintains his innocence.
