Matthew Perry, best known for playing Chandler Bing on the popular 90s sitcom Friends, tragically passed away at 54 in October 2023. Authorities have officially ruled his death as accidental, citing the acute effects of ketamine as the main cause. The Los Angeles Police Department and the County Medical Examiner-Coroner have closed the investigation into his passing.
Emergency services responded to a call at Perry’s Los Angeles home at 4:07 p.m. on the day of his death. The autopsy report revealed that he died due to the effects of ketamine, along with contributing factors like drowning, coronary artery disease, and the impact of buprenorphine, a medication for treating opioid use disorder.
Despite Perry’s reported 19 months of sobriety, the autopsy showed that he had undergone ketamine infusion therapy, with the last session taking place a week and a half before his death. The coroner clarified that the ketamine found in his system couldn’t solely be attributed to the recent therapy, considering ketamine’s short half-life of three to four hours.
Matthew Perry’s legacy is deeply tied to his role in Friends, where he played Chandler Bing alongside Courteney Cox, Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, and David Schwimmer. Perry openly shared his struggles with addiction in his 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, highlighting his journey to sobriety and expressing pride in maintaining a clean lifestyle.
