Matthew Perry’s Cause Of Death Doubted By Ex: He ‘Might Have Taken Pills’
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Weeks after his tragic death, Matthew Perry’s cause of death is being questioned by his ex-girlfriend. Kayti Edwards, who dated Perry in the 2000s, expressed doubts about how her ex-boyfriend died and if drugs were involved.
Born in 1969, Matthew Perry was raised by John Bennett Perry, an actor, and Suzanne Marie Langford, the former press secretary to Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. His early life was divided between Montreal and Los Angeles, following his parents’ separation when he was just a year old.
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Perry’s journey in the entertainment world began as a child actor. When he was 15, he decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and try out an acting career by moving to Los Angeles. Perry landed his first sitcom role on the show Second Chance (which later became Boys Will Be Boys) and went on to secure roles in series like Charles in Charge and Beverly Hills 90210. By 1988, he had already made his big screen debut in the film A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon, where he starred alongside the late River Phoenix.
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing
‘Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing’ by Matthew Perry
However, it was the role of Chandler Bing in the legendary sitcom Friends that really catapulted Perry to superstardom. Premiering on NBC in 1994, the show about six single New Yorkers navigating the complexities of adulthood quickly became a cultural phenomenon. Perry, who was only 25 years old when the series began, became a household name seemingly overnight alongside his fellow cast members Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, and David Schwimmer. And the momentum didn’t let up: by the series’ end, the finale episode drew in over 50 million live viewers, and each of the Friends cast members had salaries of over $1 million per episode.
As Chandler Bing—the witty roommate to LeBlanc’s Joey Tribbiani, and eventual love interest of Cox’s Monica Geller—Perry was an essential piece of the Friends ensemble. His dry humor and distinctive delivery etched Chandler’s place into pop culture, with catchphrases and memorable moments that fans still cherish today. Could he be any more perfect for the role?
Along with 10 seasons of Friends under his belt, Perry’s acting credits included the romantic comedy Fools Rush In starring Salma Hayek, The Whole Nine Yards starring Bruce Willis and Amanda Peet, and Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.
In 2022, Perry came out with a memoir titled Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir, which detailed his struggles with drug and alcohol addiction alongside his rise to fame. In the book, he recalled a near-death experience at the age of 49, when his colon burst from overuse of opioids. The actor spent two weeks in a coma, and another five months recovering in the hospital.
His ex-girlfriend came forward to talk about the Friends star’s death. Here’s what Kayti Edwards said about Matthew Perry’s cause of death.
Matthew Perry’s cause of death response by Kayti Edwards
In an interview with The UK Sun, Edwards spoke about how she felt about Matthew Perry’s cause of death. “There are a lot of things that aren’t adding up for me,” she said. “I don’t believe he just drowned in his Jacuzzi, that doesn’t sound right.”
The model continued, “I know Matthew and I know that he wouldn’t have just drowned. I think he might have taken pills in the week leading up to this. They said there were no prescription painkillers at the scene, which doesn’t surprise me, because he didn’t leave drugs lying around. He was paranoid and would take them all, so there wasn’t any evidence, and then go out for more when he was ready to.”
Days leading up to his death, Perry posted pictures on his Instagram and signed off his captions with Mattman. “That Mattman thing was not something he did when he was sober,” Edwards claimed. “Mattman would come out when he was not sober and he felt kind of invincible. I was around when he was getting high, although I was not getting high with him, and when I would say maybe he should cool it a little bit with the drugs, he would say, ‘No, I’m Mattman’.”
On November 1, 2023, TMZ reported that law enforcement ran a less-in-depth test on Perry which revealed he did not have fentanyl or meth in his system. However, it will take months to conduct more in-depth tests to see if other illegal drugs were present in his blood or if he took prescription drugs at a higher dose.
Matthew Perry’s death certificate was released by the LA County Department of Health on November 9, 2023. There were no underlying diseases or injuries listed on the certificate as potential causes of death, E! News reported.
How did Matthew Perry die?
Matthew Perry died at the age of 54 from an apparent drowning, according to TMZ. The publication reported that the Friends actor was found dead in a hot tub at his home in Los Angeles, California, on Saturday, October 28, 2023.
Initial reports claimed that there were no drugs found at the scene and no foul play was involved, however, an investigation into how Matthew Perry died is still ongoing. Having completed the autopsy, investigators are still waiting on the complete toxicology results. On November 1, 2023, TMZ reported that law enforcement ran a less-in-depth test on Perry which revealed he did not have fentanyl or meth in his system. However, it will take months to conduct more in-depth tests to see if other illegal drugs were present in his blood or if he took prescription drugs at a higher dose.
Before the report, many fans wondered if his sudden passing had anything to do with his past health struggles—including his battles with addiction to alcohol and Vicodin.
Perry’s battle with drug addiction started after he had a skiing accident on the set of the film When Fools Rush In in 1997. The doctor prescribed Vicodin for his pain, but as a highly addictive substance, Perry’s use escalated to taking up to 55 pills a day. Along with his opioid addiction, he suffered from alcoholism. In his 2022 memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, he explained how to tell which substance he was using based on his appearance on Friends: “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.”
Five years before his passing, Perry was also open about the fact that he already had his fair share of brushes with death. He revealed in his memoir that he almost died after suffering a gastrointestinal perforation when his colon burst from opioid overuse. “The doctors told my family that I had a two percent chance to live,” he told People in 2022. “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.”
“There were five people put on an ECMO machine that night and the other four died and I survived,” he added. “So the big question is why? Why was I the one? There has to be some kind of reason.”
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, Perry had another near death experience while staying at a rehab center in Switzerland when he had to get surgery. During his procedure, he was given a shot of propofol. After 11 hours, he woke up in a different hospital and was told that the propofol had stopped his heart for five minutes. The long CPR process broke eight of his ribs.
While Perry often didn’t disclose how long he stayed sober, the actor was always open about his relapses. He had been to rehab 15 times, attended 6,000 AA meetings, been in detox 65 times, and spent between $7 to $9 million trying to get sober.
“It’s important, but if you lose your sobriety, it doesn’t mean you lose all that time and education,” he said. “Your sober date changes, but that’s all that changes. You know everything you knew before, as long as you were able to fight your way back without dying, you learn a lot.”
In his interview with People in 2022, Perry revealed that he wrote his memoir for anyone else struggling with addiction. “I say in the book that if I did die it would shock people, but it wouldn’t surprise anybody. And that’s what I’m doing with writing this book. That’s why I wanted to do it,” he said at the time. “I wanted to talk about the highs and the lows because people are suffering out there and maybe if they hear a story from somebody they’ve seen on TV that’s worse than their’s or just the same of their’s, they’ll be filed with hope, which is the key thing.”
Friends, Lovers, and The Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry
‘Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing’ by Matthew Perry
For more about Matthew Perry, read his memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing. The New York Times bestseller takes readers through Perry’s life and career, from his childhood dreams of becoming an actor to how he was cast in Friends to his struggle with addiction and his stints in rehab. “Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty. And I should be dead,” Perry writes in the book. Told in his own words for the first time ever, the memoir is an “unflinchingly honest, moving, and uproariously funny” account of Perry’s trials and triumphs. Described as an “unforgettable memoir that is both intimate and eye-opening,” Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing is a must-read for Friends fans.
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, help is available. Call the SAMHSA National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357) for free, confidential support.
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