Crime, Conspiracy, Cults and Murder - Ep. 124 | The Life & Death Of Matthew Perry

Episode Date: August 19, 2026

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The world thought it knew the man. For 10 years, he walked onto a soundstage in Burbank and made 30 million people laugh every Thursday night. They knew his voice, his timing, the way he could turn an ordinary line into something no one saw coming. But what they didn't know was what it cost him. And the war he fought for decades, mostly in private. And when he finally told the world, he revealed the simplicity of his mission. And then on October 28, 2003, Heartbreaking news broke the way these things usually do, a name, a location, and almost nothing else.

He was found unresponsive in his home, and for weeks, that's all anyone had. But something didn't add up, and when the answers finally came, they pointed to an inner circle. This is the story of Matthew Perry. Crime, conspiracy, cults, serial killers, and murder, all things that I love to consume, and I know you do too, you sick twist a beautiful, intellectually minded freak. And today we are talking about someone that damn near everyone I know loves Matthew Perry. I mean, Friends was my childhood growing up. So this one is very near and dear to my heart.

So without further ado, let's unbuckle our sleep belts, go mock-fied on the highway, slam on the brakes, and bustle the windshield into this heartbreaking case together. I want to take a quick pause to talk about my morning routine. I used to have like about a five-step product morning. I had the primer, the foundation, the powder. the whole thing. And by noon, it looked like I was just wearing a mask, a mask of myself, who wasn't me, you know? But then I found Jones Road Beauty. And the miracle bomb specifically is my holy grail. I have been using this for a while now, and it is my favorite product. You just swipe it on with your fingers, you blend it out, and you're done. It's my blush, it's my bronzer, it's my

highlighter, it can even be my lip tint. Just one product under 60 seconds. And my skin actually looked like skin enhanced, but not covered up, which is exactly what I want in the summer especially. Post beach, post shower, just throw it on, instantly sun-kissed. And when I travel, I don't need to carry around a giant makeup bag, I just carry that around and the essentials. And every Jones Road formula is packed with skin-loving ingredients, which I also really appreciate. No phthalates, no sulfates, no PEGs. So it nourishes your skin instead of clogging it. And I have very, very sensitive skin, so I'm very picky about what I put on it. And Jones Road Beauty has given me zero issues. And they just launched a foundation stick for days. You just want more coverage. It's buildable,

medium to full, and completely weightless. So it doesn't feel cakey. And it also has seramides, squalane, and sodium highlight. And it's dermatologist tested, and it has 30 shades. And right now, our listeners get a free full-size mascara with their first purchase. So head to jonesroadbeautcom and use code kmk at checkout. And when they ask where you heard about them, just tell them, I sent you. Thank you so much to Jones Road Beauty for making my skin look so beautiful. And for supporting the channel and sponsoring the video and let's get back to it. Matthew Langford Perry was born on August 19th, 1969 in Williamstown, Massachusetts. And his mother, Suzanne Langford, was a journalist and former Missingford.

Canadian University Snow Queen. And his father, John Bennett Perry, fronted a folk group called the Serendipity Singers. And the Serendipity Singers played a pageant in 1967, which is where his parents first crossed paths. And John landed a career in acting, and most famously as the sailor in those old spice cologne commercials that ran through the 70s and 80s. And Suzanne later worked as press secretary to Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. And the marriage was short-lived, and the couple separated while Matthew was still just a baby, and his mother was 21 years old when that day came. And the whole family made the trip from Massachusetts up to the Canadian border, where Perry's maternal grandfather met them. Quote, I would have been excited to see him, and then,

I'm told, my grandfather took me out of my car seat, handed me into my grandfather's arms, and with that, he quietly abandoned me and my mother, unquote. And his mother brought him to Ottawa, Ontario, and raised him there. But Suzanne's career meant she wasn't always around. And Matthew would reflect in his memoir, which if you haven't read his memoir, it is so well done. And honestly, listening to the audiobook because he read the audiobook, I really highly recommend giving it a listen because it is fantastic. But he would go on to say, quote, my mom's job therefore meant that she was away at work a lot. And I was left to compete with the ongoing concerns of a major Western democracy and its charismatic swordsman leader if I wanted a little attention, unquote. His father went to California to pursue an acting career, the dream that had pulled him away in the first place.

The closest Matthew usually got to his father was a TV screen or a magazine page. But every time his dad came around, Matthew saw someone flawless. Quote, bottom line, though, was, my dad was my hero, unquote. And Perry wrote that his father eventually, quote, unquote, became a wonderful father. But none of that was visible to a kid left one. wondering why his dad had chosen California over him. So at five years old, Matthew's life already ran on two tracks. He lived with his mother in Montreal and made trips to Los Angeles to see his father from time to time.

And John eventually would remarry a different woman named Debbie Boyle. And then in 1981, Suzanne married Keith Morrison, who would become one of the most recognizable correspondence on NBC's dateline. Keith also raised me. His voice is like butter. Play a clip. Hello, I'm Keith Morrison. And when Caitlin, his first half-sister from his mom's new marriage came along, Matthew adored her immediately. And the same thing happened when his second sister, Emily, arrived. But with each new addition, the distance grew.

And he felt like he was standing on the outside of a family that had formed without him. But between both families, Matthew eventually had five half siblings. And he would write, quote, But my family was held together by one man, and that was Keith Morrison, unquote. Now, growing up in Ottawa, Matthew attended Rockcliff Park Public School, where one of his classmates was a boy named Justin Trudeau, who would eventually become Prime Minister of Canada. And after that came Ashbury College in all boys' secondary school. And a school play called The Death and Life of Sneaky Fitch put him on stage in a major role. And that's when he realized he could make a room laugh.

And Matthew was also a gifted athlete who ranked among Canada's top junior tennis players. And on Jimmy Kim alive in 2017, he told a story of beating up Justin Trudeau with a friend. It's a little bit funny, I'm not going to lie. I think he was excelling in a sport that we weren't as, so it was pure jealousy. I see. And we, you know, we beat him up. You know, I'm not bragging about this. This is terrible.

I was a stupid kid. Matthew had his first drink at 14 years old, which then became a regular part of his life growing up. And at 15, Matthew packed up and he would move to Los Angeles. to live with his father. And he'd come to chase tennis, the one thing he was better at than almost anyone, his age in Canada. But in LA, the competition was a different beast.

And he couldn't even crack the national ranks, and the dream quietly collapsed, unfortunately. And then he would enroll at the private school called Buckley School and graduated in 1987. And on the side, he took improv classes at a comedy theater called the LA Connection. And his father's agent agreed to represent him, and the audition started flowing.

So Matthew's first first, television appearance had actually come years earlier in 1979 on a police drama called 240 Robert or 240 Robert sorry from saying that wrong that starred his father and after that the roles came slowly and went quickly and through the mid 1980s Matthew cycled through small parts on Charles in charge and Silver Spoons and the Tracy Allman show but his first starring role came in 1987 on a sitcom called Second Chance where the premise followed a dead man returning to mentor his younger self.

But nobody really watched it. So the network reworked the whole thing and renamed it Boys Will Be Boys and centered it on Matthews character. But that version was canceled too. And then in 1988, he appeared in a coming-of-age film alongside River Phoenix called A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon. But sadly, the film barely registered with the public. And then one of his standout roles came in 1989,

on growing pains, where he played Carol Siever's boyfriend and his character was killed in a drunk driving accident. And Valerie Bertinelli's 1990 sitcom, Sydney, made him a regular cast member. And he followed that with guest turns on Who's the Boss and Beverly Hills 90210. Roeback! And by 1993, he was headlining a series called Home Free, playing a reporter who hadn't moved out of his mother's house. And it lasted only a handful of episodes, unfortunately, so nearly a dad. In a decade in, Matthew had racked up dozens of credits without landing anything really permanent.

But one of those guest spots on a show called Dream On introduced him to minds behind friends, Marta Kaufman, Kevin Bright, and David Crane. And in 1994, Matthew was cast in LAX, 2,194, or 2194, a comedy set at Los Angeles International Airport where baggage handlers worked during the year 2,194. And the pilot hadn't been picked up, but it locked Matthew into a contract that kept him off the market for the time being.

So while he was tied to LAX, 2,194, a script called Friends Like Us was circulating through Hollywood during pilot season. The moment Matthew read the script, Chandler Bing jumped off the page. The joke sounded like his jokes. The mannerisms looked like his mannerisms. It was as if the character had been built from pieces of his own personality, and he would write in his his memoir, quote, one character in particular stood out to me. It wasn't that I thought I could play Chandler, I was Chandler, unquote. And his business manager had recently broke the news that Matthew was broke. And every three or four days, he was on the phone with his agents, pleading for a shot at the friend's audition. But they couldn't do anything for him while he was still tied to another

show. But on paper, Chandler looked like a casting layup, and Kaufman and Crane had loaded the part with jokes and witty dialogue, so they figured the right actor would practically find them. Then three weeks went by and audition after audition and nobody was right for the part. And since he couldn't audition himself, Matthew spent his time getting other people ready for the Chandler role, and a handful of them were his own friends. And he walked them through the timing, the inflections, the physical beats that he already knew Chandler needed. And one of those actors was Craig Bierko, who'd previously worked with Kaufman and Crane on their show The Powers That Be. So weeks of auditions turned up nothing,

and Kaufman and Crane went to Bierko with an offer. And Matthew was crushed when he heard. Quote, my heart sank because I knew I was Chandler, but I also wasn't an asshole, unquote. And even after Matthew encouraged Beirko to take the role, he said he went with another opportunity. And he wanted the lead in another pilot, a show called Best Friends. And the door soon opened for Matthew. And Jamie Tarses, a producer at NBC, asked her husband, Dan McDermott, who worked at Fox, if there was any chance LAX-2194 would survive. And McDermott told her, no, calling the pilot, awful, youch. And no distributor picked it up, and just like that, Matthew now had nothing holding him back. Now, he would say he had never prayed before in his life. Three weeks before the

audition, he dropped to his knees on the floor of his tiny apartment and asked God for one thing, which was fame. He had memorized every line in the script before he ever set foot in the audition room. And he read for Kaufman on Wednesday and the production company on Thursday and NBC on Friday. And as Kaufman remembered, quote unquote, he came in and that was it. Chandler Bing was the last of the six main characters to be cast on Friends. And Friends premiered on NBC on September 22nd, 1994, airing Thursday nights at 8.30 p.m. And as a cornerstone of NBC's must-see TV lineup, it shared the spotlight with Seinfeld N-E-R, but two of the most popular shows at the time. We're talking Jerry Seinfeld, we're talking George Frickin' Cluny did, and 30 million

people tuned in, and the show became a cultural fixture almost overnight. And Matthew described the first rush of fame as a kind of theme park. Quote, I was on friends from age 24 to 34. I was in the white hot flame of fame. The six of us were just everywhere all the time, unquote. And for about eight months, it felt like everything he'd ever wanted, quote, and then you realize that it doesn't accomplish anything. It's certainly not filling any holes in your life, unquote. So in season one, each cast member earned around $22,500 per episode. And by season three, that number had climbed to $75,000. And David Schwimmer, who played Ross Geller, pushed the group to negotiate as a unit,

a move that could have cost him personally since he had the leverage to demand more on his own. And Matthew gave him credit for it, writing that Schwimmer's decision, quote, served to make us take care of each other through what turned out to be a myriad of stressful network negotiations, and it gave us a tremendous amount of power, unquote. And by the final season, they were each making over, a million dollars per episode. And after season two, Matthew flew to Las Vegas to shoot a film called Fools Rush In. And while there, he crashed a jet ski and he would be prescribed Vicodin for the injury. And this is where he would become hooked from the very first pill. Quote,

it wasn't my intention to have a problem with it, but from the start, I liked how it made me feel and I wanted to get more, unquote. Now, at his worst, Matthew was swallowing 55 Vicodinin a day. migraines to get prescriptions, cycled through different doctors, sat through MRIs he didn't need, and on Sundays, he'd show up at strangers, open houses, and raid the medicine cabinets for whatever pills were inside. By the time he shot Serving Sarah, which followed Friends Season 5, his daily routine ran on methadone, Xanax, cocaine, and a quart of vodka, and nothing he said on camera was usable due to how badly he was slurring his speech. So the production brought him into a booth to re-record every line and after filming wrapped.

And unfortunately, the drinking caught up with him in May 2000, when pancreatitis put him in Cedars Sinai. And the same day he was discharged, he would plow his Porsche into a house nobody luckily was living in. And Matthew wrote that one can track his addiction just by watching the show. Quote, quote, 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. And he admitted he couldn't remember three full years of filming, somewhere between seasons three and six. And even with his addictions, one line he refused to cross was drinking on set, but he showed up in brutal shape. Quote, when I went to work in extreme cases of hangovers, it's so horrible to feel that way and have to work and be funny on top of that, unquote. And at least once, Matt LeBlanc, who played Joey, had to shake him conscious seconds before he was supposed to deliver a line. So a sober living facility actually served as his home base through all of season seven, with staff driving him to Warner Brothers Studios and

back every shooting day. And that included the day they filmed Chandler and Monica's wedding. His castmates watched it happen and couldn't do much about it. And LeBlanc told people he tried to reach him, but, quote, there wasn't a response. It's such a personal struggle. They need to bottom out on their own, unquote. And Lisa Kudrow, who played Phoebe, described the 2000 and 2001 seasons, quote, when Matthew was sick, it was not fun. We were just hopelessly standing on the sidelines. We were hurting a lot, unquote. And Kaufman called it, quote, terrifying, unquote, saying it was like watching someone you care

about in so much pain. And Crane said the cast was aware of Matthew's struggles while the show was still in production. Quote, there was a point where we said to him, do you want to stop being in the show, that is? And he was adamantly like, no, this is really important to make. end quote. And out of 10 seasons, Matthew stayed fully sober for exactly one. And that was season nine. And that was also when his sole Emmy nomination for the role came through. And that same fear that drove his addiction ultimately shaped every relationship he tried to hold as well. And in almost every case, Matthew was the one who walked away, ending things before the other person could. And I'm sure

that has to do something with his dad leaving when he was younger and abandonment issues and everything. like him leaving just made him feel like he had control. And he talks about this in his memoir as well. And it's very interesting. But he would date Julia Roberts in 1995, but convinced himself she'd leave and ended at first saying, quote, I was not enough. I could never be enough.

I was broken, bent, unlovable, unquote. And his longest relationship with Lizzie Kaplan lasted six years before ending in 2012. And he came close to proposing, but wrote that his, quote, fears reared up like a snake. I often think if I'd asked her to marry me, now we'd have two kids and a house. Instead, I'm some schmuck who's alone in his house, unquote.

And Molly Hurwitz, a literary manager, was the last person he was with. And they were engaged by 2020 and no longer together by 2021. Now, Matthew went to rehab 15 times over the course of his life. At a cost, he estimated at somewhere between $7 and $9 million. And he explained, quote, I lived half my life in one form of another of treatment center or sober living house, which is fine when you are 24 years old, less fine when you are 42 years old. Now I was 49 still struggling to get this monkey off my back, unquote.

And three of those stays fell during the friend's years in 1987, 2001, and 2003. And Matthew described the hole that had on him saying, quote, I didn't know how to stop. If the police came over to my house and said, If you drink tonight, we're going to take you to jail, I'd start packing. I couldn't stop because the disease and the addiction is progressive. So it gets worse and worse as you grow older, unquote. In 2018, the disease nearly got him, and opioids had wrecked his gastrointestinal system and his colon ruptured.

And the public was told he'd been hospitalized for a gastrointestinal perforation, which made it sound manageable, but it was not. And the coma lasted two weeks. He didn't leave the hospital for five months, and his doctors informed his family that his survival chances were 2%. And they placed him on an ECMO machine, which takes over the work of the heart and lungs entirely. And Matthew called it a Hail Mary, quote unquote, no one survives that. But he did manage to survive it, but the aftermath was brutal. And he wore a colostomy bag for nine months, and the pills had put him on the operating table 14 times, all stumbling.

and he said the scars served a purpose, quote, that's a lot of reminders to stay sober. All I have to do is look down, unquote. So in 2019, a separate medical procedure nearly killed him as well. And he was given propofol and his heart stopped for five minutes. And the person who saved him with CPR broke eight of his ribs in the process. And his therapist told him, quote, the next time you think about taking oxy-cotton, just think about having a colostomy bag for the rest of your life. unquote. And the way Matthew described it, a tiny opening appeared, and he pulled himself through.

And after that, OxyContin stopped calling to him. Even while fighting for his own sobriety, Matthew spent years trying to make the road easier for other people. And he lobbied Congress in 2011 to fund drug courts as an alternative to prison that channels people with addiction into treatment instead of cells. And in 2013, he converted his old Malibu Mansion into a sober living facility called Perry House, which ran for about two years. And the Obama administration honored him with its Champion of Recovery Award in 2013, and Phoenix House gave him its Phoenix Rising Award in 2015. And Matthew talked about what that work meant to him compared to everything else he had accomplished,

saying, quote, I've had a lot of ups and downs in my life and a lot of wonderful accolades, but the best thing about me is that if an alcoholic comes up to me and says, Will you help me stop drinking? I will say, yes, I know how to do that, unquote. And he meant it. Now, Hank Azaria, who had appeared on friends as a recurring guest over the years, wrote of Matthew, quote, I'm a sober guy for 17 years. I want to say that the night I went into AA, Matthew brought me in. The whole first year I was sober, we went to meetings together. As a sober person, he was so caring and giving and wise, and he totally helped me get sober, unquote. And when asked how he'd like to be remembered, Perry's answer was always the same, helping people.

Matthew's memoir, friends, lovers, and the big terrible thing, was released on November 1st, 2022, and it became a New York Times bestseller. And it was also, in many ways, just a big confession. And the opening line set the tone saying, quote, Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name, my friends call me Maddie. and I should be dead." The book just laid bare what he had spent decades hiding from the public. The rehab's days, the medical emergencies, the pills swallowed between takes, the relationships

he had sabotaged before anyone could leave him first. And readers already knew pieces of the story, but the memoir assembled them into a single unbroken account. And some details had never been made public before, and he revealed that the serving Sarah production shutdown cost him $650,000 out of pocket. And he wrote about watching Julia Roberts accept the Oscar for Aaron Brokovich from his room at a rehab facility, knowing he'd been the one to end things between them. And one particular passage drew immediate backlash. Matthew had written that he wondered why actors like River Phoenix and Heath Ledger died young while Keanu Reeves continued to walk the earth.

And he ultimately agreed to cut it from all future printings, citing it as a stupid, thing to say. And the memoir also documented Matthew's experience with ketamine at a rehab clinic in Switzerland during the pandemic, and he called the experience a giant exhale. And he'd lay blindfolded with music playing during each session, but the relief wore off. And over time, the sessions triggered disassociation so severe that Matthew felt like he was on the edge of death. Quote, oh, I thought, this is what happens when you die, unquote. And in the end, he decided the drug wasn't worth it. And he wrote that, quote, taking K is like being hit in the head with a giant happy shovel.

But the hangover was rough and outweighed the shovel, unquote. And he admitted he kept signing up for it anyway because, quote unquote, anything different is good. And Matthew told people he waited to write the book until he felt safely distant from the worst of it, saying he was, quote unquote, pretty certain that it would help people. And at a promotional video posted to Instagram, he spoke directly to anyone struggling saying, I want people to understand that they're not alone, that there are people feeling exactly the way they're feeling, and that their behavior is not insane, and that they have a disease and it's not their fault, unquote.

And on real time with Bill Mayer, Mayor, Mayor bluntly told him, quote unquote, it's hard to die, you tried, you pushed it. And Matthew corrected him, saying he'd never wanted to die, but admitted he'd done things he knew could kill him and did them anyway. And in a live interview in Toronto with CBC Radio's Tom Power, Matthew said, quote, I would like to be remembered as somebody who lived well, loved well, was a seeker, and his paramount thing is that he wants to help people. That's what I want, unquote. And his dreams, he said, had moved from acting to coaching people through sobriety. Quote, when I die, I don't want friends to be the first thing that's mentioned.

I want that to be the first thing that's mentioned, unquote. Referring to his work helping people get sober. And quote, and I'm going to live the rest of my life proving that, unquote. But not everyone believed he was well. And Charlie Sheen read the memoir and said he loved it. But appearing on Pierce Morgan's show, he admitted what he saw during the press tour. Perry wasn't sober. Quote, I could tell he wasn't sober.

Talking about a book that is all about sobriety and recovery, I felt really bad. I felt bad for him, unquote. And Sheen considered calling Matthew once he finished reading. the call never happened. And Matthew also gave Diane Sawyer a quiet pair of warning signs to watch for to show when he's not doing well. Quote, if I say I'm just gonna chill alone at home tonight

and part two, if I ever say I'm cured, unquote. Even still, his memoir's final lines genuinely read like a man who believed he'd survived the worst of it, saying, quote, I never gave up, I never raised my hands and said, that's enough, I can't take it anymore, you win. And because of that, I still stand tall now, ready for what comes next."

So Matthew spent his last months getting ketamine infusions prescribed for his depression and anxiety. And the drug is primarily a surgical anesthetic, but doctors had increasingly been prescribing it off-label for mood disorders. And his doctor administered it under clinical supervision as controlled doses. But Matthew wanted more than his doctor was willing to give. And at September 2023, he asked his live-in personal assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, to help him find ketamine. And he either handed over cash up front or told Iwamasa he'd pay him back and sent him out to find a source. And the two had known each other since roughly 1992 over 30 years at this point. And in

2022, Matthew hired Iwamasa to live with him and work as a full-time assistant for $150,000 a year. And part of his job involved Matthew's medical care. And he knew about Matthew's lifelong battle with addiction, of course, and his job should have included keeping Matthew on track with sobriety, but he did the opposite. And Dr. Salvador Placencia was a licensed physician known to those around him as Dr. P. And Matthew was connected to him through another of the doctor's patients, someone who pitched the actor as a high-profile person willing to pay cash and lots of thousands for ketamine. So Dr. P would see Matthew not as a patient, but as a payday. And in a text message to another doctor, he wrote, quote, I wonder how much this moron will pay, unquote. And he openly

described Matthew to another patient as, quote, spiraling out of control with his addiction, unquote, and still kept the ketamine coming. And Dr. P. wanted to be Matthew's go-to for drugs. And his supply line ran through a second physician, Mark Chavez, who had previously run his own ketamine clinic. And Chavez obtained ketamine through fraudulent means and sold it to Dr. P. And each vial ran about $12 to get, but they would charge Matthew $2,000 per vial. So between September 30th and October 12th, 2003, Dr. P's network moved approximately 20 vials to Perry through Iwamasa, collecting around $55,000 in cash. And Dr. P also taught Iwamasa how to administer the injections. And Iwamasa had no medical training. And eventually, Dr. P's prices got

too high and Matthew went looking for someone cheaper. And that source was Jasveen Sanga, a drug dealer known by her customers as the ketamine queen. And her North Hollywood residents doubled as a drug warehouse where she kept and packaged ketamine and methamphetamine for sale. And she was a dual citizen of the United States and the United Kingdom with no known legitimate employment. And in August 2019, she had sold ketamine to a man named Cody McClary, who died of an overdose hours later. And after McClary died, one of his relatives contacted Songay directly and told her that ketamine was listed as the cause of death. Yet, Sangay never stopped selling. And Eric Fleming,

a 54-year-old middleman, connected Songay's supply to Matthew. Now, Fleming picked up 51 vials from Sangay and passed them along to Iwamasa, and the price tag for all 51 vials came to roughly $11,000 in cash. And they kept their conversations on encrypted apps and spoke in code calling ketamine Dr. Pepper. And as October wore on, the volume climbed. And by the last stretch of Matthew's life, the injections had increased to six to eight times a day. And on at least two separate occasions in October, Iwamasa walked in to find Matthew completely unconscious. And one large dose caused him to freeze up, while Iwamasa stood right there. watching. Now, Iwo Masa was the only person who saw these signs, and each one should have stopped him.

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So on the morning of October 28, 2003, Iwamasa injected Matthew with ketamine at approximately 8.30 a.m. And it was the first shot of the day. And by 11, Matthew was at the Riviera Club near his home in Pacific Polisades. Playing pickleball, Matthew loved the game. And he'd even built a small pickleball shrine inside his own house. And he played for two hours and was described as being in good spirits throughout. And around 12.45 p.m., Matthew was sitting through a movie when Iwamasa gave him the second injection. And about 40 minutes later, he asked Iwamasa to get the jacuzzi ready.

And then he made one more request, quote unquote, shoot me up with a big one. Iwo Masa loaded a syringe and gave him the third dose. And Matthew was in or around the jacuzzi when the needle went in. And once the injection was done, Iwamasa headed out on errands. Matthew had asked him to pick up a new iPhone and a pair of prescription glasses. And around 4 p.m., Iwamasa came back and found Matthew floating face down in the hot tub. He was unresponsive. And dispatchers received a 911 call at 4.07 p.m. local time and logged it as a watch.

emergency. In Los Angeles Fire Department, responders arrived at the Pacific Palisades home expecting a rescue, but Matthew was already gone. And he was not transported to a hospital. And Iwamasa made three more calls once 911 had been reached. One to Matthew's mother, one to a sibling, and one to a woman with no connection to the family. LAPD officers from the West L.A. division responded to the scene. And the LIPD's robbery homicide division showed up as well,

and the unit was typically assigned when a case involves a public figure. And law enforcement sources said there was no signs of foul play. And first responders searched the house and found no illegal drugs anywhere on the property. But what they did find were prescription medications, including antidepressants, anti-anxiety drugs, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease medication. Nothing was found near the Dekuzzi where Matthew died, though. And anyone looking at the scene that afternoon, it appeared to be a tragic accident.

Matthew was 54 years old, and he was pronounced dead at the scene. Within hours of his death, reaching the news, the people in his supply chain began to react. And Sangay sent a message to Fleming telling him to delete all of their conversations. And before the day was over, Chavez got on the phone with Dr. P. and the two talked. about whether their ketamine was responsible for Matthew's death. Tributes are being paid this morning to the Friends actor Matthew Perry, who has died at the age of 54. Now his passing was soon the lead story on every major network and trending across every single platform, and the LA County Medical Examiner held off on naming a cause of death.

And toxicology results were still pending, and those could take three to four months to finalize. So for now, all anyone knew was that Matthew Perry had been found dead in his hot tub. his five co-stars spoke together. Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox, Lisa Cudrow, Matt LeBlanc, and David Schwimmer, released a joint statement saying, quote, we are all so utterly devastated by the loss of Matthew. We were more than just castmates, we are a family.

There is so much to say, but right now we're going to take a moment to grieve and process this unfathomable loss. In time, we will say more, as and when we are able. For now, our thoughts and our love are with Maddie's family, his friends and everyone who loved him around the world." And the show's creators, Marta Kaufman, David Crane, and executive producer Kevin Bright followed with their own statement, calling it impossible to accept, saying, quote,

we will always cherish the joy, the light, the blinding intelligence he brought to every moment, not just to his work, but in life as well. He was always the funniest person in the room, unquote. And Warner Brothers Television honored him as, quote, an undelable part of the Warner Brothers Television Group family, unquote, noting that his comedic talents resonated around the world. But the tributes would come from everywhere, and not just from people who had shared a set with him. Matthew's family provided a statement to people, saying, quote, we are heartbroken by the tragic loss of our beloved son and brother. Matthew brought so much joy to the world, both as an actor and a friend. You all meant so much to him and we appreciate the tremendous outpouring of love,

unquote. And even Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the same kid Matthew once beat up in his earlier years, posted his own tribute saying, quote, I'll never forget the schoolyard games we used to play. And I know people around the world are never going to forget the joy he brought them. Thanks for all the laughs, Matthew, you were loved and you will be missed, unquote. And in the days that followed, people went looking for Matthew's last traces online. And his final Instagram post had gone up on October 23rd five days before his death. and he was in his hot tub shot at night. With the caption, quote,

Oh, so warm water swirling around makes you feel good. I'm Matman, unquote. And according to people, editor-in-chief Wendy Noggle, Matman was a reference to his script he had been writing. The Matman name showed up across several of his October posts, one of which was a Batman local carved into a pumpkin. And his memoir had ended with a line that now, with current context, reads like a signature, quote,

someday, you too might be called upon to do something important, so be ready for it. And when whatever happens, just think, what would Batman do and do that? Unquote. A Noggle also noted that Matthew had been in good shape before he died and had committed to an upcoming drama film. And on Friday, November 3rd, he was laid to rest at Forest Long Memorial Park in Los Angeles. And the cemetery sits near the Warner Brothers studio lot where Friends was filmed. And all five of his co-stars attended the service.

along with his father, John B'nai Perry, and his stepfather, Keith Morrison. Now, the autopsy was conducted on October 29, 2003, one day after Matthew's body was found. And again, no cause of death was announced because the medical examiner said toxicology would take weeks to complete, maybe even months, and six weeks passed with no answers. And then, on December 15th, the medical examiner released its findings, and the cause of death was the acute effects of ketamine, drowning, coronary arbor artery disease and buprenorphine, a drug prescribed for opioid addiction, were listed as contributing factors. And the manner of death was certified as an accident. In Matthew's last legal ketamine infusion, the one administered by his doctor, had taken place more than 10 days before he

died. Due to its short half-life, ketamine clears from the body relatively quickly. So the medical examiner's report drew one definitive conclusion. The ketamine in Matthew's blood, quote, could not be from that infusion therapy since ketamine's half-life is three to four hours or less, unquote. And one other detail stood out in the report. Matthew had been, quote-unquote, reportedly clean for 19 months. And if the drug in his blood couldn't have come from his doctor, someone else put it there. So the question now was who?

And for the next eight months, the public waited again. And on August 15th, 2024, the federal government went public. five people were charged in relation to Matthew's death. And the case had been built jointly by the LAPD, the DAA, and the United States Postal Inspection Service. And U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada laid out the government's position saying, quote, they knew what they were doing wrong. They knew what they were doing was risking great danger to Mr. Perry. But they did it anyway. In the end, these defendants were more interested in profiting off Mr. Perry than caring for his well-being, unquote. And DEA Chief Anne Milgram described the arc of the conspiracy, quote,

Matthew Perry's journey began with unscrupulous doctors who abused their position of trust because they saw him as a payday and ended with street dealers who sold him ketamine in unmarked files, unquote. And the five defendants were named. Jasveen Sanga, Dr. Salvador Placencia, Dr. Mark Chavez, and Kenneth Iwasama, and Eric Fleming, and the superseding indictment against Sanga and Dr. P., ran 18 counts covering conspiracy to distribute ketamine, falsified documents, and several additional trafficking charges. And both were arrested in Southern California, and both pleaded not guilty.

And Sangha was held without bail as a flight risk, and the other three pleaded guilty. And on August 7th, Iwamasa pleaded guilty to a single conspiracy count for distributing ketamine causing death. And he told the court he had been injecting Matthew himself over and over with zero medical training right up to the afternoon he died. And Fleming entered his guilty plea the following day and conspiracy and distribution charges, confirming that the ketamine he had sourced through Sanga was the supply that killed Matthew. And Chavez took a deal on a single conspiracy count and confirmed he had been the one routing ketamine to Dr. P. And when law enforcement searched Sanga's North Hollywood residence in March 24, the scale of her operation became clear. And inside,

they see 79 vials of liquid ketamine, thousands of pressed methamphetamine pills, ecstasy tablets, counterfeit Xanax, baggies filled with powdered ketamine and cocaine, a scale, and packaging supplies. And according to prosecutors, the apartments had served as a stash house and distribution point going back to at least 2019. And Sanga had positioned herself as a boutique supplier to high-profile Hollywood clients. And Matthews family spoke through his stepfather, Keith, saying, quote, we were and still are heartbroken by Matthew's death, but it has helped to know law enforcement has taken his case very seriously. We look forward to justice taking its course, unquote. And five people now faced federal charges for their roles in the death of Matthew. So the cause of death was public

now, but the source of the ketamine was not. And for the months that followed, no one could explain where it had come from. And one of the first things people latched on to was the involvement of the LAPD's robbery homicide division. And the unit routinely catches cases involving public figures, not because of suspicion, but because it has the staffing and institutional knowledge to handle the media pressure that follows. But most people didn't know that, and what they did know was that the same division had investigated the death of Michael Jackson, a case that was ultimately ruled a homicide. And the association stuck.

So if RHD was involved, something must be wrong. and it didn't help that authorities had publicly stated no foul play was suspected, which seemed to contradict the unit's very presence. So the confusion was understandable, and officers had searched the house and found no illegal substances anywhere on the property, but what turned up inside the house was unremarkable. Like we already went through, the medication bottles in various states, loose pills mixed in with candy and breath mits and nicotine vaping products and an inhaler. Nothing pointed to a crime scene.

and the instinct that something was wrong turned out to be correct, but the public was focused on what happened inside the house, not on a network of suppliers working outside of it. And others went a completely different direction entirely and called it suicide. Now the official ruling was accidental death and friends of Matthews had told investigators that he'd said he was not suicidal. But online comment sections weren't interested in the ruling, and one commenter on the Washington Post story wrote unempathetically,

Who cares about a wealthy addict who probably decided to commit suicide? Stop writing this rot already. But one section of Matthew's memoir blurred the line between a death wish and the warped reasoning of someone deep in addiction. Quote, If dying was a consequence of getting to take the quantity of drugs I needed, then death was something I was going to have to accept. That's how skewed my thinking had become.

I was able to hold two things in my mind at the same time, unquote. And then, of course, came the conspirators. theories. Because before anyone knew what had killed him, a wave of right-wing commenters and anti-vaccine voices had already settled on their answer, the COVID-19 vaccine. And they pointed to his public support for vaccination during the pandemic, especially a post on X where he'd share a t-shirt printed with a twist on one of Chandler's catchphrases, could I be any more vaccinated? And far-right activist Laura Lumer posted, quote, Matthew Perry is dead at 54, sounds like he drowned in the jacuzzi, wonder if it's COVID vaccine related, unquote. And Matt Wallace asked his more

than 1.3 million followers whether they believed Matthew's death was caused by, quote unquote, getting so many COVID vaccines. And as Newsweek noted, the same pattern of vaccine skeptics had followed other public deaths, including that of Texas rapper Big Poki. And it seemed to be more about a template waiting for the next name than Matthew specifically. And the toxicology report that might have quieted the speculation took weeks to arrive. So in the meantime, there were no facts to compete with the conspiracy theories. And when the cause of death was finally released, a new mischaracterization took hold, and this time from mainstream outlets. And the conversation shifted from who killed Matthew to what killed him. And the answer many landed on was ketamine therapy

itself. And the New York Times ran a headline declaring that his death, quote unquote, shines a harsh light on ketamine treatment. It's insane what mainstream media will just shit out, with zero evidence. It's insane. And Rolling Stone pushed back, pointing out that his death was a story about ketamine abuse, not ketamine treatment, but acknowledged that swapping the word in the headline would never generate that same clicks. Ooh, they got clocked.

And the DEA would lean into the conflation. And on CBS's Face the Nation, a DEA, minister, Anne Milgram, drew a direct line between ketamine overprescribing in the early stages of the opioid crisis. And what she left out, as Rolling Stone pointed out, is that the DEA's own classification puts ketamine at Schedule 3, a tier reserved for drugs with low to moderate dependence risk, alongside certain steroids and codeine-based medications. And fentanyl and other opioids sit one level higher at Schedule 2, a class responsible for more than 81,000 deaths in 2022.

The comparison stretched well beyond what the numbers supported. And Dr. David Fifle, a psychiatrist who had administered ketamine therapy since 2008, through his Kedema Neuropsychiatry Institute, pushed back directly, and he told Rolling Stone he found the conclusions almost funny, because, quote, there isn't a mechanism for ketamine to kill somebody, unquote. And in his view, the ketamine took away Matthew's ability to move, and once he went underwater, he couldn't get himself out. And Fifle believed the autopsy should have listed drowning as the cause of death,

because the medical examiner's own findings complicated that argument. Matthew's blood contained ketamine levels roughly eight times what a standard clinical dose would produce, and the levels found in his system were high enough to cause cardiovascular oversimulation and shut down his breathing. And as mentioned earlier, drowning was only identified as a contributing factor,

along with coronary artery disease and burenoprofen. Sorry if I'm saying that wrong. And meanwhile, the government couldn't even quantify the scope of the problem people were debating. And ketamine falls under the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics Broad, quote-unquote, poisoning by other category, preventing individual differentiation, according to a spokesperson interviewed by Rolling Stone. There were no separate numbers to cite, no trend line to point to, and no data to support

the claims of a ketamine epidemic. And the autopsy report did not identify how the ketamine entered Matthew's body. And that was a strange gap, because his prescribed treatments had always been given. through IV drips at a clinic. And the medical examiner's office found no needle marks on his body and refused to explain the contradiction when Rolling Stones asked. So the public had been right to sense that something didn't quite add up. And the toxicology pointed to ketamine that couldn't have come from his doctor, and

the scene pointed to no illegal drugs in the house. So those two facts sat side by side and refused to reconcile. And people reached for explanations, some of them reasonable and some of them pretty absurd, because the alternative was sitting with a question that had, no one had an answer to. So none of the five defendants ever went to trial. Iwasama and Fleming had entered their guilty pleas in August 24, with Chavez entering his own in October 24, where he admitted to a single conspiracy count funneling ketamine to Dr. P. And the two who had initially fought the charges eventually folded as well. And in July 2025, Dr. P pleaded guilty to four counts of distributing

ketamine just weeks before his trial was set to begin. And at September 2025, Sangei entered her plea to five charges, one being the distribution of ketamine that caused death or serious bodily injury, and she faced a maximum sentence of 65 years. And she admitted that she and Fleming had sold Matthew dozens of vials of ketamine on October 2023, and that Iwasama had used the supply to inject him at least three times on the day he died. And the sentences came down over the following months. Chavez received eight months of home confinement. Dr. P was sentenced on December 3rd, 2025 to 30 months in federal prison and two years of supervised released and a $5,600 fine. What are these sentences? And then immediately was taken into custody. And Fleming received two years

in prison and Sangay was sentenced on April 8th, 2026 to 15 years in federal prison by far the heaviest punishment of the five, which is embarrassing because it's not even bad at all, which is infuriating. And Iwasama, the last to be sentenced on May 27, 2006, received three years and five months, a $10,000 fine and two years of probation. The sentencing hearings gave Matthews family the opportunity to speak directly to the people responsible. Dr. P. was in tears when he faced the courtroom, saying he should have been the one to protect Matthew and that the responsibility was his to carry. And the prosecutor wasn't interested in the apology, calling him, quote unquote,

a drug dealer in a white coat, clocked. And Matthew's mother, Suzanne Morrison, approached the microphone and spoke, saying, quote unquote, I just want you to see his mother. Matthew's father and stepmother, John and Debbie Perry, addressed Dr. P. Next, saying, quote, you don't deserve to hear our feelings. How you devastated our family contributing to the loss of Matthew,

our only son, a warm, loving man who was to be a rock as we aged, an uncle to our grandchildren, and the mountain his siblings could turn to, unquote. And the family circled back to the text message Dr. P. had sent when he first learned that Matthew was willing to spend, the one where he called him a moron. And they told the court he had, quote, conspired to break his most important vows repeatedly, sneaked through the night to meet his victims in secret. For what, a few thousand dollars, unquote?

And when it was Sungay's turn to face the court, she claimed, quote, unquote, full responsibility, and she was deeply ashamed. And Debbie Perry spoke again saying, quote, the pain you caused is irreversible. You clearly had a talent for making money, but you chose to hurt people. How sad.

And she told the judge that Sangai never should get the chance to destroy another family. And Keith Morrison addressed Sangha directly saying, quote, I don't hate you. You're a drug dealer. You supplied an addict, unquote.

And at Iwo Masa's sentencing, Matthew's mother wrote a letter to the judge that was read into the record, saying, quote, Matthew trusted Kenny. We trusted Kenny. Kenny's most important job, by far, was to be my son's companion and guardian in his fight against addiction. We trusted a man without a conscience, and my son paid the price, unquote. And out of everyone charged, Iwamasa's drew the family's deepest anger. And Judge Garnett told Iwamasa, he watched Matthew battle addiction from closer than anyone, and that what he did was reckless on the final day and in the days before it.

quote, you were privy to his struggle with addiction, your conduct was reckless, not just on the day of his death, but in the days leading up to his death, unquote. And the judge said, the record contained no hard proof that Iwamasa had acted out of malice, while noting that others would see it differently. And the fairness of the sentence drew immediate debate. And Mark Gragos, Sango's attorney, called the sentence, quote unquote, bitterly disappointing and challenged the disparity, asking how his client could have held five times. more accountable than the person who put the needle in Matthew's arm or the doctor who sourced the ketamine. And Dr. P's defense team called him, quote unquote, not a villain, but a doctor whose compassion led to serious mistakes. Get the fuck out of my face. How do these people exist? And they pointed out he had already lost his license, his clinic, and his career, and argued that a prison sentence

would accomplish nothing beyond what had already been taken from him. Womp, fricking wamp. And his lawyers added that the threats from strangers had grown so severe that Dr. P's family left the state entirely. And the prosecution pointed to a pattern. Two people had died from Sungay's ketamine, Matthew and Cody McClory. And still, she didn't care and kept selling. And Iwamasa's attorney pushed for leniency, telling the court his clients had spent decades following the lead of a man who controlled every aspect of the relationship, saying, quote, his loyalty to Mr. Perry was paramount. He worshiped Mr. Perry. He looked at. up to Mr. Perry, all he did was please and accommodate Mr. Perry."

The defense tried to argue that Iwamasa had no real choice in the matter, but Judge Garnett stopped him cold. Quote unquote, unwilling, not unable. He could have said, no. He was a grown ass man, by the way. But Matthew had set the chain in motion himself, and he was the one to ask Iwamasa to find ketamine in September of 2023 and handed him money to do it. And as U.S. attorney Estrada put it, Matthew fell back into addiction in the fall of 2023, quote, and these defendants took advantage to profit for themselves, unquote. And Keith Morrison observed, Matthew saw drug dealers as sometimes his best friends, sometimes his worst enemies. And Dr. P. and Chavez surrendered their medical licenses following guilty pleas. And Sangay showed no such reckoning. And recorded phone calls from

jail caught Sangay talking about locking down trademarks and securing the book rights to Hearst. And on Christmas Day of 2024, someone on the call said, quote, we're going to sell those books right, unquote. And Sangai fired back, quote, oh, I know, the plan is in the fucking trademark is going down, unquote. And prosecutors argued the recordings proved she viewed her crimes as a future revenue stream rather than grasping the severity of what she'd done. Just a grade A piece of shit person. Let's take a quick pause to talk about one of today's sponsors. Now, if you've been sitting on a business idea, here's the truth. Shopify makes it stupidly easy to actually do it.

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So go make it one and start your free trial at Shopify.com slash ccc.m. That's Shopify.com slash ccc.m. Thank you so much to Shopify for sponsoring the video and supporting our business and channel, and let's get back to it. So going back a little bit on November 3rd of 2023, less than a week after Matthew died, his family launched the Matthew Perry Foundation. And it was established as a donor-advised fund through the National Philanthropic Trust dedicated to helping people struggling with addiction.

He wanted his legacy to be focused on helping other people struggling. And now the people closest to him were building it. And Marta Kaufman, who had watched Matthew battle his addiction while filming friends, said he had found genuine purpose in helping others. Quote, he learned things throughout this, and what he learned more than anything is that he wants to help other addicts, and it gave him purpose, unquote. And Kaufman urged fans to watch friends, remember him for the joy he brought,

and to donate to drug treatment centers. Let's fight the disease. And Matthew's death also forced to recognize. with an industry that had expanded faster than anyone had been watching. And between 2017 and 2022, the number of ketamine prescriptions written in the United States surged by more than 500%, according to a 2023 study by Epic Research, with most written to treat pain. And Grand View Research valued the ketamine clinic industry at $3.4 billion in 2023, projecting roughly 10% annual growth through the end of the decade.

And that same October, the FDA put out notice on compounded ketamine products like lozenges, citing risks that include psychiatric episodes, spikes in blood pressure, and respiratory depression. And the agency emphasized that psychiatric applications of ketamine have not received FDA clearance and that further clinical investigations would be required. And Dr. Stephen P. Cohen, an anesthesiology professor at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, that was a mouthful, saw greed driving the expansion. And he pointed to clinics where no physician ever examined a patient, nobody tracked outcomes, and every session had to be paid for in cash.

And he described the landscape as disgusting and called it the Wild West. And Dr. Gerard Senecaora directed the Yale Depression Research Program and said the fundamental problem was a lack of data. Quote, we just don't know how many people are getting this drug. We don't know what doses it's being used as. We don't know what the adverse events are, unquote. And the investigation into Matthew's death had unconsored. covered something larger than one man's supply chain. Doctors and street level dealers had been moving ketamine

through an underground pipeline. And Matthew's case just echoed other instances where celebrity overdose deaths led to charges against alleged suppliers, including cases tied to Mac Miller, MLB pitcher Tyler Skaggs and Philip Seymour Hoffman. An attorney Andrew Pickett noted the high profile cases draw public attention to the broader drug crisis,

saying, quote, they serve as a warning to both practitioners operating on the fringes of legality and those facilitating substance abuse." But the proper way to handle, address, and spread light on these drug-related issues is still an open question. Though the debate is ongoing, it's clear that something must be done, and there are those committed to finding the solution. Matthew had told the world exactly how he wanted to be measured and remembered, not by the show or the fame, but by whether he had helped someone find their way out of the same darkness that once consumed him. And that wish was honored by the foundation bearing his name

and the life that he lived. And on behalf of myself, I just want to say, I love and Miss Matthew Perry. And I think it's devastating what happened to him and anybody who is struggling with addiction. I hope you seek help. And I know how difficult it is. I have people in my family that struggle as well. And that is another reason why I wanted to cover this case, because I think it's incredibly important. And I really think that his memoir was a really, a really amazing book to read if you are struggling with anything. So that is it for me today. I'm going to stop crying, and that is it. If you have any other videos you want me to dive into, let me know down below. What the heck? Sorry. And I'll see you in the next one. Okay? Bye.