Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - WHY 'VITAMIN K' KILLED 'FRIENDS' STAR MATTHEW PERRY

Episode Date: December 19, 2023

Matthew Perry wrote about his issues with addiction to alcohol and drugs. In his memoir, he said he began drinking at 14 and was an alcoholic by 18. Perry first went to rehab and completed a 28-day program at the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation after a jet-ski accident led to an addiction to Vicodin. In his 2022 memoir, "Friends, Lovers, and the Big, Terrible Thing," Perry claimed to have been to rehab 15 times, detoxed 65 times, and spent about $7 to $9 million trying to get sober.     After years of addiction, Matthew Perry spent 5-months in the hospital after his colon burst from prolonged opioid abuse. Perry says he was in surgery for seven hours and in a coma for two weeks. Doctors told his family he had a 2% chance of survival. After leaving the hospital, Perry used a colostomy bag for months.   Two years after his near-death experience, Matthew Perry goes to a Rehab facility in Switzerland. He wrote that he faked pain symptoms to get Oxycontin during COVID. He was also getting daily Ketamine infusions. While at the facility, Perry needed to have surgery and was given propofol. When he woke up 11 hours later, he found out his heart had stopped for 5 minutes and during the long CPR process 8 of his ribs were broken. The doctor then refused more meds.   On October 28, Matthew Perry went to his country club to play a game of Pickleball with friends. Perry returned to his home after the game and was seen by his assistant, who was leaving the house to run errands. At 4 p.m., the assistant returned home and found Perry floating face down in the heated end of the pool.  Paramedics pulled Perry out of the pool and pronounced him dead at the scene. The DailyMail reports the actor died from an overdose of the "party drug ketamine."  Joining Nancy Grace Today:  Wendy Patrick – California Prosecutor, Author of “Why Bad Looks Good” and “Red Flags,” and Host of “Today with Dr. Wendy” on KCBQ in San Diego; Twitter: @WendyPatrickPHD Caryn L. Stark – NYC Psychologist, Trauma and Crime Expert; Twitter: @carynpsych, Facebook: “Caryn Stark” Mike McCormick – Owner and Lead Investigator of M.C.M. Investigations (Los Angeles); Former LAPD Detective for over 25 years (worked Gangs for 5 years); Facebook: MCM Investigations Dr. William Morrone  – Chief Medical Examiner, Bay County Michigan; Author: “American Narcan: Naloxone & Heroin-Fentanyl Associated Mortality” Miguel Melendez – Senior Writer, Entertainment Tonight Digital; Twitter & IG: @MelendezReports See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. There was universal grief across our country when the star of Friends, Matthew Perry, died unexpectedly. But now we're finding out what led up to the death of the TV superstar. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Crime Stories and on Sirius XM 111. First of all, the same way I like to start every jury trial, let me start with the 911 call. Listen. Answer 23, rescue 23, EMS 9. Answer 23, rescue 23, EMS 9, all on radio.

Respond to the drowning. You can't tell a lot, but I learned something significant. Let's hear that one more time, Sid. Engine 23, rescue 23, MS-9 on radio. Respond to the drowning. Crosses, sir, few times. Engine 23, rescue 23, EMS 9, all on radio. In front of the drowning. Across the surf, U-turn. Engine 23, Rescue 23, EMS 9. Now, some of those numbers are universal. Sometimes you hear numbers across a police band or on an EMS that are specific to that region. But what I'm hearing that really jumps out at me is response to the

drowning. So at the beginning, it was believed that the Friends star died of drowning because that's what was reported to them. But what do we really know? Take a listen to our friends at Crime Online. The Los Angeles medical examiner determined that 54-year-old Matthew Perry died from the acute effects of ketamine. Other contributing factors listed were drowning, coronary artery disease, and the effects of buprenorphine. Buprenorphine is used to treat opioid use disorder. The manner of death has been ruled an accident. Okay, see, I'm a trial lawyer, and that is why the medical examiners and everybody at the crime lab would go hide under their desk when they

saw my beat-up Honda pulling up, because they knew I was going to go through it line by line, literally, to make sense of what they wrote down in their scientific findings. What acute effects of ketamine, other contributing factors were drowning, coronary artery disease, used to treat opioid disorder, manner of death, accident. There's so much there. I could do a whole flow chart on that to try to explain all that to a jury. Luckily, we have experts with us. But first, I want to go to a special guest joining us, Miguel Melendez, joining us, senior writer for E.T. Entertainment Tonight.

Miguel, what a pleasure to have you on, man. This sent shockwaves through not only Hollywood, but across our country, because I'm going to follow this up with our shrink, Karen Stark. We think we know Matthew Perry. Why? Because we've seen him on the big screen. We've seen him on the little screen. We follow him in the tabloids.

We think we know him and about his life. We've been following his struggle with addiction. And a lot of people can identify with that. If you haven't had that struggle in somebody, you know, somebody close to you has had that struggle. So Matthew Perry was kind of like every man that was struggling with a lot. But to you, Miguel Melendez, I want to go before I get into Matthew Perry himself and how it ended up this way, I want to talk to you about what happened, what surrounded the discovery of Matthew Perry dead in a hot tub leading up to that. Tell me about the discovery and what came out at the time that

he was first discovered dead in the hot tub. Right. So what we know of the timeline is that at 11 a.m. Matthew had played pickleball. At 1.37 p.m. is when Matthew was last known to be alive by his personal live-in assistant who lived with him in the Pacific Palisades home. He was off to run errands at 1.37 p.m. The live-in assistant returned home and found Matthew floating face down in the jacuzzi. The assistant jumped into the pool, moved Matthew into the sitting position on the steps of the pool, and found him, by the way, on the heated side of the pool, called 911. Paramedics arrived, and they pulled Matthew out of the pool. Okay, hold on, Miguel.

You're giving me so much information so quickly. I'm drinking from the fire hydrant. Because, Miguel, you know I like to dissect every single sentence and I loved everything you just said as far as factually what I'm learning. Could you say it again and very slowly? Okay. Did you say the live-in assistant found him? Yes. Okay. Why did Matthew Perry have a live-in assistant. That I can't answer you, Nancy. I don't know the exact circumstances of what led to that. I do know that the live-in assistant, based on this report, is that he administered the detox drug on Matthew twice a day. That's important, Miguel Melendez.

Hold on, Miguel. Hold the thought. Guys, with me is a senior writer for Entertainment Tonight. You all know him, Miguel Melendez, giving us everything we need to know to analyze this drug, ketamine, that claimed the life of Matthew Perry. Karen L. Stark joining me, a renowned TV radio trauma expert at KarenStark.com. Karen with a C if you're trying to find her. Karen, so is it like a minder you have with AA that, I don't think they call it a minder. They call it something else.

Someone that checks in on you. It's like your partner, your buddy. That's who you call when you have a problem or you're going to relapse. Is that what you think is happening here? He had somebody to help him? It's called a sponsor. And his assistant, she was his sponsor. She was his minder, as you said, Nancy. So she was there. She could not stop him from taking something, but certainly was trying. That was her role to make sure that he was on the straight and narrow and sticking to his determination to stop. And he was very open about it, but he really did want to stop taking drugs recreationally. He really did. And he made no secret about it. What led up to that moment Miguel Melendez is describing?

But first again, Miguel, could you tell me the assistant comes in, you said he was near the heater end of the hot tub? Correct. So at 4 p.m. the live-in assistant walks in from a running errand, finds Matthew Perry floating face down in the jacuzzi in the heated end of the pool. The assistant jumped into the pool, moved Matthew into the sitting position on the steps of the pool and called 911. Paramedics soon arrived, pulled Matthew out of the pool onto the grass where he was pronounced dead at the scene. You know, I think I had it bass-ackwards, Miguel Melendez. I was saying hot tub because I've read jacuzzi, but was the jacuzzi or the hot tub part of the pool?

Was he in a pool or was he in a hot tub or jacuzzi? It looked like it was a long pool that has a jacuzzi in it. They're not two separate. Okay, that makes perfect sense. Okay, guys, what led up to this moment? Take a listen to our friend Nicole Parton. Matthew Perry went to his country club to play a game of pickleball with friends around 11 a.m. Perry returned to his home after the game and was seen by his assistant who was leaving the house to run errands at 1 37 p.m. At 4 o'clock p.m. the assistant returned to the home. Investigator Jennifer Herzog says the assistant found Perry floating face down in the heated end of the pool. The

assistant jumped into the pool and moved him into a sitting position on the steps and called 911. Paramedics responded, pulled Perry out of the pool and onto the grass and pronounced him dead on the scene at 4 17 p.m. His stepfather, Keith Morrison, is listed as the informant, which means the dateline host is who identified Perry to authorities. Oh my goodness, that must have been so horrible on the stepfather to have to do that. After the struggle he Matthew Perry went through so publicly against substance abuse. Mike McCormick joining me out of L.A., owner, lead investigator, MCM Investigations. Mike McCormick, thank you for being with us.

I'm very curious. Matthew Perry had been so open and public about his battle with addiction. Who, I mean, even I know about that 2,000 miles away. Who would be supplying him drugs, ketamine and all the other things in his system? It was either prescribed to him. The ketamine was prescribed or he's getting it off the street. There's only several ways of doing it. My understanding is that the, from his assistant or past girlfriend, Ms. Edwards, that she's been involved with him off and on from about 2006, and she used to purchase his drugs off the street for him. So the ketamine and other drugs he may have been taking could come from either source. crime stories with nancy grace miguel melendez uh joining us senior writer entertainment tonight

is that true i i don't know that. Is that true? And can that be corroborated that an ex-girlfriend would score drugs for him? Well, I don't know that the girlfriend and the assistant are the same people. I do know that there was a girlfriend who was his assistant at one time. And she has gone on record and asked that, you know, the doctors be investigated if they were the ones who supplied the ketamine. Now, she's gone on record and said that if that happened, then this investigation needs to happen. But whether the assistant and this ex-girlfriend are the same people, it doesn't seem to indicate that that's what happened based on the investigation and the details that are in the medical examiner's report.

Nancy, this is Wendy Patrick. It looks like the assistant that was living with Matthew Perry at the time of his death was a man named Kenny Awamasa. Right. Not a prior girlfriend or a female assistant. You're right, Wendy Patrick. Guys, you're hearing California prosecutor and author of Why Bad Looks Good, Wendy Patrick at wendypatrickphd.com, the star of Today with Dr. Wendy on KCBQ. I was just coming to you, Wendy, on another point, a legal point, and that is I saw the trial go down. I don't know if you remember Archie Bunker of All in the Family.

Oh, yeah. When his son died of an overdose, he went after the supplier in the Fulton County Courthouse. And I was just wondering, Wendy, about people knowing about his public struggle against addiction. I mean, he wrote about it. He talked about it. He talked about it, very open about it. Who would supply someone battling addiction with drugs? It's a great question. When you have, when you're talking about somebody that's supposed to be a confidant, a sponsor, a helper, a minder, we have all these terminology, these terms that we use. It's very different than

a Michael Jackson situation where you actually have somebody medically administering a drug. Who would do it? I would have to say, Nancy, as you and I and our listeners know, the same people that are selling drugs to begin with, maybe somebody that doesn't know him well enough, or because it was prescribed lawfully for a medicinal purpose, somebody that honestly, although mistakenly, thought that he needed it or could handle it in different doses. You know, ketamine, if it's being supervised, is used, certainly not as often as many other drugs, but you have to believe whether or not somebody thought

they might be doing him a favor if he was depressed, if he was suicidal. They could not have been more wrong. And if it comes out that we can find the supplier or someone who aided or abetted him, I want you to just think about this, Wendy Patrick, about criminal charges. Joining me right now is the expert in this field, As far as I'm concerned, the preeminent expert, Dr. William Maroney, medical examiner, toxicologist, pathologist, opioid treatment expert, author of American Narcan, which is on Amazon. Dr. Maroney, take a listen to what we've learned about the autopsy. Matthew Perry's autopsy report doesn't say how or when Perry used ketamine prior to his death, but the coroner ruled out the

ketamine treatments he had a week and a half before his death because ketamine has a half-life of three to four hours or less. The report notes at the high levels of ketamine found in his post-mortem blood specimens, the main lethal effects would be from both cardiovascular overstimulation and respiratory depression. Drowning contributes due to the likelihood of submersion into the pool as he lapsed into unconsciousness. And that's not all, Dr. Maroney. Wait for it. I would never have imagined this goes into the cocktail. The autopsy report noted Matthew Perry's history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, emphysema, and diabetes. The report mentions Perry's past drug use, but notes Perry had

reportedly been clean for 19 months. The New York Post reports that in the autopsy report, a comment is made about Perry undergoing ketamine infusion therapy, most recently one and a half weeks before his death. The report states ketamine treatments are for anxiety and depression, but ketamine in the system couldn't be from the infusion therapy. Dr. Bankhole Johnson, one of the leading neuroscientists and physicians in the field, tells the New York Post that ketamine in Perry's system is more likely from recreational use. Male hormone testosterone injections, and there's one more ingredient. Why was Matthew Perry getting injections of the male hormone testosterone.

Listen. According to Matthew Perry, he had been clean for 19 months. But the Daily Mail reports the actor died from an overdose of the party drug ketamine. According to the autopsy report, a detective who attended the scene of Perry's death said, quote, during my investigation, no alcohol, illicit drugs or drug paraphernalia were found, unquote. The Daily Mail also claims the 54-year-old was getting injections of the male hormone testosterone and an unnamed female associate claimed the injections were causing him to be angry and mean for the last couple of weeks. From my point of view, Dr. Maroney, as a layperson and not a doctor, an MD like you, if something causes you to be angry and mean, it makes me wonder if it also didn't jack up his heart rate, this male testosterone

injection. But I mean, I don't know what to make of it, Dr. Maroney, because you've got ketamine, you've got testosterone, you've got the opioid treatment drug. There's so much going on there. What you have is a cocktail of disaster because you probably are dealing with multiple doctors that are not communicating. Nobody's coordinating his care. And if he's getting ketamine, as it said in the autopsy, there's ketamine contents in the stomach that would be ketamine pills. That's a rogue doctor. Somebody outside of good practice guidelines giving pills they have no business giving in addition to ketamine treatments. I mean, is a ketamine used by vets so animals don't have pain during operations?

Yeah, it helps with anesthesia for your cats and dogs. But at low doses, it's been shown to be beneficial in massively unstable major depressive disorder. But guess what? That acceptable therapy is nasal. It's a nasal spray with your psychiatrist. Wait, what? You're saying ketamine, which many people believe is just used by veterinarians. Now, people are using it and you're saying that the only approved way

for it to be used by people is by a nasal spray? The acceptable FDA approved supervised ketamine treatment is to go see your psychiatrist, have an appointment, get a nasal spray and stay until you're stable and have a

counseling session. What you have here is somebody keeps saying, well, he's in treatment, he's in recovery. He's not getting enough psychosocial therapy because he's impaired, he's impulsive, he's processing poor decisions because he doesn't have that counseling part linked to all this medicine. What is ketamine? Ketamine is a class of medicine that works on transmitters called glutamate. Oh, dear Lord in heaven. Speak English, man. What?

Speak English. I mean, is this something I've got to worry about they're going to have in the halls of my twins high school? I mean, I hear about ecstasy, coke, marijuana, blah, blah, blah, blah. But ketamine? Ketamine's been abused for 20 years in drug culture and drug use. But is it traded freely on the street? It is on the street. You can buy it if you can ask for it from your dealer.

They'll get you some. But it fda approved as a nasal spray and he's not getting the fda approved version okay i heard somebody jumping in is it wendy or karen stark karen it's used as a club drug it started years ago nancy but it's continuing people do use it recreation, but it's also, there are a lot of trials going on where they are psychedelics to stop addiction, just the opposite of what we have here, and for depression. And that has to be a trial because it's not FDA approved. These are rogue doctors in rogue clinics. The only doctor that's probably legitimate here is the one giving the buprenorphine. That's the hardest word to say, but in order to do that, you have to have training. The rest of these people doing ketamine, rogue. They're outside

the law. They're outside good practice. We saw this with Anna Nicole Smith, Michael Jackson, Prince, all these rogue doctors treating all these celebrities, and you don't know who's around them. Ketamine has been around and being abused for a long time. We just don't know that much about it, and we don't see it as much. It's not soaked into our national understanding as well. But as far as I can remember, it's been called baby food, bump, cat killer, cat valium, Fort Dodge, green, green K, K land, K hole. There's a million slang words for ketamine. And the first time I ever saw that was when I was prosecuting and somebody had it as an aside drug. They were dealing heroin and they also had vitamin K. And you're going to laugh at this, Mike McCormick.

I said, so what's wrong with vitamin K? Because I didn't know that vitamin K was ketamine. And that was, oh gosh, I was prosecuting a dope lord and he had a stash of vitamin K. That's the first time I heard about ketamine. And Matthew Perry was not the first celebrity to be open about the ketamine therapy sessions. I mean, the week before he died on December 1st, Chrissy Teigen was very open about the fact that she underwent a ketamine therapy session to celebrate her birthday. And she said on Instagram how she saw space and time and her late son, late son Jack, is someone she saw during this therapy session. So ketamine has kind of like sort of has come into the conscious as of late.

And now more because of Matthew Perry's death you're seeing the horrible side effects that it can have so Miguel Melendez from ET joining us you're saying that it's common use among celebrities to what fight depression to fight depression to figure themselves to use them to use it as a form of therapy. Chrissy Teigen is far from the only celebrity who has been open about taking or undergoing ketamine therapy sessions. You have the likes of Sharon Osbourne and Pete Davidson who have been open about this.

But again, ketamine therapy session is not dangerous if it's done under supervision, as our esteemed doctors here have said. When you go rogue, and in this case, it seems to indicate that's what Matthew Perry did, you're going to see the fatal consequences. And that's just that's exactly what happened here. You're hearing Miguel Melendez, senior writer, E.T. And I've got to get everything he said, which is all correct, by the way, explained to me medically.

Dr. William Maroney, renowned expert in this field. So when you have ketamine treatment with a doctor, you're saying ketamine is ingested nasally, like through Dristan, the spray into your nose. And if it's used any other way, then it's rogue. Do I have that right, Maroney? The reason why it's rogue is the FDA approved spray comes with specific conditions that you're observed, that they follow instructions, and that your safety comes first. and you really can't even drive to and from your session you're supposed to have somebody take care of you as soon as you let somebody take ketamine pills well it's unobserved it's uncontrolled and it's clear there was

ketamine in his stomach and his level in his blood was uh exactly halfway between low anesthesia and high anesthesia. You don't have those levels when you're supervised. And the whole idea that ketamine therapy is matched to a psychosocial treatment, a behavioral counseling session, that's where you make the changes. You have better insight. You have better processing of stress. You're not impulsive. The last thing you want with impulsive behaviors with somebody in addiction is to put them on testosterone. That's insane. Well, everybody knows it makes you feel really good as a man. You're 60 years old. Suddenly you feel 36.

Okay. But it comes with a price of frustration and anger and really short tempers. Add that to the impulsivity of substance use disorder. And you could have, you know, a dark rabbit hole, a hidden monster in the shadows. And somebody who's not going to listen to somebody when they say, oh, you know, taking a few too many ketamine pills. Ketamine spray is not something you do every day. It's once or twice a month with counseling sessions. Because he had the pills in his stomach still at the time of autopsy, we know it was rogue ketamine and not the type used for infusion treatment. And of course, you've got the other factor weighing into Matthew Perry's death.

And that is with all these drugs in the system, he gets into the pool, the hot tub, and it's not the first time. Take a listen to our cut 13. Now an emergency. Hi, how you doing? This is is security from beverly hilton hi what's going on i need the paramedics apparently i got a 46 year old female found in the bathroom that's all i've got right now but they're requesting paramedics okay so now found the bathroom what room is she in i'm not sure she fell or she was in the bathroom with the water four four six four four three four i'm sorry that's room four three four yes okay and it's not east-west or anything else?

It's room 434? Yeah. Okay, and you don't know if she's conscious of breathing at all? Apparently she wasn't breathing and she's 46 years old. She was not breathing? Yes. Okay, but she is breathing now? I don't know.

Okay. The person that called me was irate and didn't get much out of her. Okay. I've got security going there now. Okay, we'll send police and fire over there with that person not breathing. Did it sound like the person was still not breathing? Yeah, that's correct. Okay, we'll get them there for not breathing.

Is there anyone we can give you to the room so I can try to get CPR? Yeah, we're going there now. Can you get me into the room so I can try to get CPR instruction? Oh, I'm sorry. No, because she kept hanging up on us. Kept hanging up on you? Yeah. Okay, all right.

We're getting our units over there, okay? Okay, thank you. Thank you, bye-bye. And there was water in Whitney Houston's lungs indicating she was alive when she was submerged underwater. But according to what we learned, the level of cocaine in Whitney Houston's body was not lethal. But it was enough to make her unaware of the fact she was going underwater. And in an eerie twist, the same thing happens to her daughter.

Take a listen to our Cut 16. The only child of Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, Bobby Christina Brown wanted to follow her mother's footsteps as a singer and actress. Tyler Perry cast Bobby Christina Brown in his television series, For Better or Worse, and had high praise for her work. In her personal life, she became engaged to Nick Gordon, a friend of the family who lived with them from the age of 12. Never officially adopted by Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, Bobby Christina Brown referred to him as her big bra online. Their engagement shocked many.

On January 31st, 2015, Nick Gordon found Bobby Christina face down, unconscious in a bathtub in her home in Alpharetta, Georgia. And then just recently, we lose another celebrity, Aaron Carter, in our Cut 21. As the younger brother of Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys, Aaron Carter had a connection to the big time. He could sing, he could dance, and he had the look. As with most teen idols, when their 15 minutes is up, Aaron Carter struggled. His first stint in a treatment

facility was announced by his manager when the singer was just 23. Then a year later, it was announced that he completed a 28-day rehab stint at the Betty Ford Center. On November 4, 2022, Aaron Carter's housekeeper found his body in the bathtub at his home. The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner coroner ruled cause of death was attributed to drowning after inhaling difluoroethane and taking the generic form of the brand name Xanax. The report also indicated that Carter was incapacitated while in the bathtub due to the effects of the drugs he took, which contributed to his death by drowning. Aaron Carter was 34. You know, Wendy Patrick, California prosecutor and author, so many people, not just celebrities, die in pools and hot tubs after too many drugs or too much alcohol.

Yeah, it's so unfortunate. You know, we only hear about some of these famous people because they're famous. Think about how many men and women, friends, neighbors, family members die in the same way, but maybe don't just grab headlines. It's one of the reasons we always want to reach out sooner rather than later for people that are struggling. And I like the way in that last clip, they talked a little bit about what happens after the fame. You know, one of the things that Matthew Perry said, he said, taking K is like being hit in the head with a giant happy shovel, but the hangover outweighed the benefits. And that's part of what I think celebrities are getting better at explaining, and that yes, perhaps they're self-medicating, but it's not worth it in the end. And that's one of the messages that Matthew Perry wanted to leave us with. Karen Stark joining us, our renowned psychologist. Karen, we know that Matthew Perry

told everyone he had been clean going on two years. Is that common for addicts to insist they're clean? It's a tremendous amount of denial, Nancy, because they really are struggling in most cases to be clean. They don't want to be addicted, but they're very, very susceptible. And when you think about somebody who's famous like that, there are always people around who are willing to oblige them with drugs and tempt them with drugs because they want to make them happy. They want to be around a celebrity. It's something that happens all the time. So I am sure he was trying, but obviously not succeeding, or that ketamine would not have been there. He had really been through a battle. I want you to take a listen to our cut for our friends from Crime Online, something I didn't know until after Matthew Perry passed away.

After years of addiction, Matthew Perry spent five months in the hospital after his colon burst from prolonged opioid abuse. Perry says he was in surgery for seven hours, in a coma for two weeks, and doctors told his family he had a 2% chance of survival. After leaving the hospital, Perry used a colostomy bag for months. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. You know, Dr. William Maroney joining us, the preeminent expert in this field. Dr. Maroney, I believe that if my colon had burst from prolonged drug use,

I would go through hell and high water not to get addicted again. But see, that's me on the outside looking in because I'm not addicted. Addicts tell me that they can't stop themselves. What it is, is there is an insight issue that comes with substance use disorder. And the only way you can rewire the brain, it's like rewiring a vacuum cleaner, rewiring a radio, or, you know, rewiring a power strip. You rewire the brain, not by feeding the body drugs just as a substitute, but in-depth therapy, making selections, looking at the trauma in your life, choosing not to be impulsive, choosing to process your stress, you have to do that with another person face-to-face. It's not always about the drugs. He may have been clean from heroin for two years but his his

brain was not done processing that impulsivity and impulsivity poor processing and lack of insight those are the three things that substance use disorder people suffer with the every single alcohol, heroin, cocaine, those are the three things. And the only way through that rewiring is with another person in a chair face to face. And that's just not being done today. Everybody wants a pill. They want a quick fix. And these rogue doctors are not getting people the therapy they need. In the end, the same thing is going to happen. Somebody's going to be investigated by the medical board. There'll be another trial in a year.

Somebody's going to lose their license. And it's so sad that Matthew Perry had to die this way. Same thing with Michael Jackson, Conrad Murray. There was a trial. He gets convicted. In the end, he walks free. And Michael Jackson's Conrad Murray, there was a trial. He gets convicted. In the end, he walks free and Michael Jackson's still dead. Same thing with Matthew Perry. A bright light has been extinguished because of ketamine. And I want to follow up with Miguel Melendez, senior reporter of Entertainment Tonight. Miguel, I had no idea that Matthew Perry

had been through so much in his battle, even having his colon burst from prolonged opioid abuse. But there's more, Miguel. Let's now cut five. Two years after his near-death experience, Matthew Perry goes to a rehab facility in Switzerland. He wrote that he faked pain symptoms to get OxyContin during COVID. He was also getting daily ketamine infusions. While at the facility, Perry needed to have surgery and was given propofol. When he woke up 11 hours later, he found out his heart had stopped for five minutes, and during the long CPR process, eight of his ribs were broken.

The doctor then refused more meds. So this guy, Matthew Perry, I mean, we look at him, Miguel, and we think, wow, he's famous, he's a star, he's got all this money and this beautiful home. This guy was in living hell that nobody knew about. I mean, he had his colon burst from opioid use. Then he dies essentially during a surgery and all eight of his ribs are broken during CPR. And yet he went back to his own hell hole. He couldn't stop himself, Miguel. Yeah, I mean, it's tragic. All these near-death experiences rooted from his need of these substances. And he wrote in his book that he thought that the only reason why he was revived and given CPR in such an aggressive manner was because the person performing the CPR said, I can't let the guy from France die on my table.

That can't happen on my watch. So in retrospect, Perry asked himself, had I not been on Friends, would they have stopped giving me CPR after three minutes? And said they went five minutes. Wow. Five of them. Wow. And you talk about these drugs in his system. And even when he was detoxing in the final episode of Friends in 2004, when the episode ended and it all came to a close and everyone felt

emotional, not just the cast and the crew, but everyone who was tuned into that show, Perry himself said in his book that he felt nothing because the detox drug that was in his system at the time made him feel numb. So even in the happiest moments or what should have been the happiest moments of his life, he felt nothing. And again, it's all rooted because of the substance issues that he's had for so long. Miguel, you are bringing up a whole nother issue, not only the battle against addiction, but how it affects your life day to day. He couldn't even feel regular emotions. I mean, you know, this morning when I was driving the twins to school, I was so happy just being with them. What a loss in your life not to be able to feel all those wonderful things. And guys, we're finding out now how his ketamine addiction began. Take a listen to our cut six,

our friend, investigative reporter, Nicole Parton. Matthew Perry wrote about the ketamine infusions he received at the Swiss clinic. He explained in his memoir that ketamine, quote, has my name written all over it. They might as well have called it Maddie. The New York Post reports that Perry described the drug as a giant exhale and said he would be blindfolded and listening to music when he got his injections. Perry also said he would disassociate during the infusions and often felt as if he were dying. Perry said he kept signing up for it because it was something different and quote anything different is good. Taking K is like being hit in the head with a giant happy shovel but the hangover was rough and outweighed the shovel. Still, in his memoir, Perry says, ketamine was not for me.

You know, Dr. Maroney, ketamine is my new nightmare. My new nightmare. Because I've never known of it actually killing anyone until now. Well, I think the ketamine awareness has went from zero to a hundred on our national barometer but the whole idea is effective evidence-based fda-approved ketamine treatment comes with counseling and where we have rogue doctors and and really dark rabbit holes is people are going to look for this stuff and not match it to the counseling. The lack of feeling that he had meant that he was just altered by drugs. Seeing people, having emotions.

You know, you talked about your kids. I got kids the same age. Where's the celebrities with taking their kids to school? They miss all that stuff. They're in clinics, they're in rehab, their homes are in the hills, and nobody has families out there. Let's get back to simple things. If you're going to do ketamine, you're going to seek it out, seek out the FDA-approved ketamine, the counseling, the psychiatrist, the behavioral health clinic, not the rogue. Rogue leads to death. You know one thing that Matthew Perry said?

He said that when I ever die, I'm probably going to be remembered for is how I helped people and maybe helped them get out of or avoid addiction. And he has done that. He has helped so many people, and he's helping us now, spreading the word about ketamine and how it can kill. Matthew Perry, God willing, rest in peace. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.