Former girlfriend shared details about the death of “Friends” star Matthew Perry

Matthew Perry was found dead in his home in the Pacific Palisades area of ​​Los Angeles on October 28 as a result of a drug overdose, the Daily Mail recalls.

Now Matthew Perry’s ex-girlfriend Maeve Quinlan has spoken out about the actor’s death aged 54 from a ketamine overdose five months ago, saying she was not shocked by the tragic news.

According to the Daily Mail, Quinlan, 59, told Soap Opera Digest recently that she was “devastated” to learn that the “Friends” star was found dead in his home in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles on October 28.

“It wasn’t a shock, but I still couldn’t believe it happened,” the Chicago-born beauty told the publication. “Even though we haven’t seen each other for a while, I miss him very much. He was a really close friend.”

The actress, who played Megan Conley on The Bold and the Beautiful from 1995-2006, was romantically linked to Perry in 2002-2003, during which time she said he remained sober.

Quinlan first crossed paths with Matthew Perry in 1994 when they lived in the same Los Angeles building on Doheny Drive while both were in the early stages of their careers.

“We always ran into each other at the same time,” she said, “usually when I was coming back from acting class or a party.”

Quinlan said she recognized Perry from TV when he played the role of Chandler Bing on the hit NBC series “Friends.”

“I was head over heels in love with him, but I never saw him again because by the time the show was filmed, he – like every actor – had moved to the Hollywood Hills,” Quinlan said.

Quinlan told the publication that they started dating after crossing paths at a charity tennis tournament in 2002, adding that after reuniting they “hit it off like a house on fire” as “it was romantic” from the start.

“When Matthew and I became romantically involved, he was 100 percent sober and very open about his previous struggles,” said Quinlan, who was married to the late actor Tom Sizemore from 1996 to 1999.

She said of her time with Perry: “It was his only year sober and we were practically inseparable. One of the reasons he liked being with me was because I didn’t do drugs.”

Quinlan said Perry “protected” her “because he knew my first husband, Tom Sizemore, was a drug addict.”

She added: “Because Matthew was always very careful around me, I never saw him drink or abuse any substances. When we were inseparable, he was completely sober. As the years went by, he hid it from me if he “Something wasn’t going well with him. He had some unpleasant and scary dying things that he hid from me because he didn’t want to disappoint me if he used them. That’s when he would shut up.”

Quinlan said Perry ultimately told her about his substance abuse problems “much later.”

Quinlan said she didn’t speak to Perry for several years before his death because “he didn’t even try to contact” her.

She said she was “shocked and devastated” to read about the drug abuse issues he addressed in his 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Bad.

“I knew something about his pain because he told me, but I didn’t know the full extent of his pain,” Quinlan admits. “I had no idea how serious these drug rehabs were or the number of them.

He knew more than anyone the pain I was going through inside trying to get my ex-husband to quit, but you can’t force someone to quit, I unfortunately learned a lesson from that marriage. They have to do it themselves.”

Quinlan told the publication that she and Perry continued to get along on a platonic level after their romantic split, noting: “Eventually we quietly became just best friends, like brother and sister.”

Quinlan remembers Perry as someone who was “so funny” and “very self-deprecating.”

She added: “He was the guy every guy wanted to hang out with and every girl wanted to date. He was the guy next door. He was at the height of his fame and he was exactly the same guy I met in 1994. He “was a little insecure. Believe it or not, he wasn’t entirely confident in girls, although he dated the likes of Julia Roberts.”

Quinlan, who described Perry as an avid family man and tennis fan, said she “had no idea how much he struggled within himself because his main goal was always to make other people happy and funny. He really thought fame would do everything better, but it didn’t happen.”

The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner said in Perry’s autopsy report released Dec. 16 that the actor also drowned in the “heated portion of his pool,” but that was a minor factor in his death, ruled an accident. People close to Perry told investigators that he was receiving ketamine infusion therapy, an experimental treatment used to treat depression and anxiety, the AP reported.

But the medical examiner said the levels of ketamine in Perry’s system were within the range used for general anesthesia during surgery, and that his last treatment 1 1/2 weeks earlier did not explain those levels. The drug is usually metabolized within a few hours. Coronary heart disease and buprenorphine, which is used to treat opioid use disorder, also contributed, the report said.

The amount of ketamine found “would have been enough to render him unconscious, his posture and his ability to float,” said Dr. Andrew Stolbach, a medical toxicologist at Johns Hopkins Medicine who reviewed the autopsy report at the request of The Associated Press.

“Using sedatives in a pool or hot tub, especially when you are alone, is extremely risky and, unfortunately, in this case, fatal,” Stolbach said.

Perry was pronounced dead after being found unconscious in his home; Investigators conducted an autopsy the next day, the Daily Mail recalls.

The actor had used drugs in the past but was “reportedly clean for 19 months,” according to the autopsy report.

Earlier that fateful day, Perry was playing pickleball, the report says, and his live-in assistant found him face down in the pool after returning from running errands. The assistant told investigators that Perry was not sick, had no health complaints and showed no signs of recent alcohol or drug use.

Post-mortem blood tests showed “high levels” of ketamine in his system, which could have raised his blood pressure and heart rate and dulled his desire to breathe, the Daily Mail reported.

Buprenorphine, commonly used for opioid addiction and found at therapeutic levels in Perry’s blood, may have contributed to the breathing problems, according to the autopsy. According to the autopsy report, it would be risky to mix the central nervous system depressant with ketamine “due to additive respiratory effects when high levels of ketamine are present.”

The report stated that his coronary artery disease would have made him more susceptible to the effects of the drugs.

Perry was one of the biggest TV stars of his generation when he played Chandler Bing alongside Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004 on the mega-hit NBC sitcom Friends.

His fellow cast members, like many of his friends, family and fans, were stunned by his death and paid loving tribute to him in the weeks that followed.

Perry has openly discussed his struggles with addiction since his time on Friends.

“I loved everything about the show, but I struggled with my addictions, which only added to my sense of shame,” he wrote in his 2022 memoir. “I had a secret and no one could know.”

The woman, whose name is withheld from the autopsy report, told investigators that Perry was in a good mood when she spoke with him days earlier but was taking testosterone injections, which she said made him “angry and mean.”

She said he had quit smoking two weeks earlier, was receiving ketamine injections to improve his mental health and that his doctor was giving them to him less frequently because he was feeling well.

As the Daily Mail notes, ketamine is a powerful anesthetic approved by US health authorities for use during surgery, but in the last decade it has come to be used in the United States as an experimental treatment for a range of psychiatric and difficult-to-treat conditions, including depression, anxiety and chronic pain.