Joseph Marzullo/WENN
Oof. This didn’t age so well.
In Matthew Perry’s book, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, published in 2022, the actor opened up about his past drug use as the “Big Terrible Thing.” But he also spoke about the drug that ultimately killed him — ketamine. When discussing that one, however, he only had good things to say.
It should have been a huge red flag…
Matty’s use of the drug began as ketamine therapy. The Friends star had started using the hallucinogenic drugs under medical supervision as part of a treatment plan for depression, during which doctors would combine ketamine with the anxiety medication Ativan — and it worked wonders. Until, as we all know, it became the problem.
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The comedian recalled it feeling like “being hit in the head with a giant happy shovel.” He remarked:
“Ketamine felt like a giant exhale. They’d bring me into a room, sit me down, put headphones on me so I would listen to music, blindfold me, and put an IV in.”
The 17 Again alum openly struggled with addiction for much of his adult life, so his description of the drug is pretty harrowing now. He said:
“Ketamine was a very popular street drug in the 1980s. There is a synthetic form of it now, and it’s used for two reasons: to ease pain and help with depression. Has my name written all over it — they might as well have called it ‘Matty.’”
Oof. The late 54-year-old recalled getting used to the hallucinogenic effects, noting he would often “disassociate” and “see things” during his sessions. He explained:
“I’d been in therapy for so long that I wasn’t even freaked out by this. Oh, there’s a horse over there? Fine — might as well be.”
He went on:
“As the music played and the K ran through me, it all became about the ego, and the death of the ego.”
In retrospect he’s absolutely just writing about taking drugs. We mean, right?? In the same way, it wasn’t always a good experience, as he expressed:
“I often thought that I was dying during that hour. ‘Oh,’ I thought, ‘this is what happens when you die.’ […] Yet I would continually sign up for this s**t because it was something different, and anything different is good.”
Jeez. That’s hard to read all this knowing this really would be how he died. As Perezcious readers know, the Fools Rush In alum passed away on October 28, 2023, after he was found unconscious in his jacuzzi. It was determined he died from the “acute effects of ketamine use,” and his assistant Kenneth Iwamasa was just arrested for involvement in the death. Per the Department of Justice, he was the person who administered the fatal dose of ketamine that killed the beloved star. Four others, including two doctors, were also charged.
So, so heartbreaking that something Matthew once thought was helping him ultimately just fed into his addiction further, and that those in his inner circle didn’t try to put a stop to it. Unfortunately no one who read the book clocked the issue he was developing with ketamine either. We all really believed he was sober.
Thoughts? Share them in the comments (below).
[Image via Joseph Marzullo/WENN]