Matthew Perry Detailed His Ketamine Experience in His Book as ‘Being Hit in the Head'

Not long before he passed away, Matthew Perry had discussed his ketamine experience. When the actor penned his biography Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing in 2022, he discussed his experience with ketamine treatment for depression. Perry compared taking the substance to 'being hit in the head with a giant happy shovel,' according to Page Six.

Perry mentioned in his book, "Ketamine felt like a giant exhale. They’d bring me into a room, sit me down, put headphones on me so I would listen to music, blindfold me, and put an IV in." As he became used to the hallucinatory effects of ketamine, the actor recalls becoming an ardent user of the drug. He wrote, "[It] has my name written all over it — they might as well have called it ‘Matty’."

According to Perry, he would lie down for an hour while the IV drip, which included both Ativan and ketamine. He explained, "I would disassociate, see things — I’d been in therapy for so long that I wasn’t even freaked out by this. Oh, there’s a horse over there? Fine — might as well be. As the music played and the K ran through me, it all became about the ego, and the death of the ego. I often thought that I was dying during that hour. ‘Oh,’ I thought, ‘this is what happens when you die'. Yet I would continually sign up for this s--- because it was something different, and anything different is good."

Based on the findings of the Los Angeles County medical examiner, Perry passed away at his Pacific Palisades residence on October 28, 2023, due to the acute effects of ketamine. The postmortem report said that the actor's death was caused by a combination of drugs and drowning; his live-in aide discovered him motionless in his swimming pool hot tub. Fans adored Perry, who was just 54 years old and best known for his role as Friends' Chandler Bing, thus his death was tragic for many reasons.

Furthermore, he had triumphed against drug misuse in the past, even though he confessed to having been dangerously close to death several times. Perry, according to EOnline's reporting, disclosed in the same book how near he was to death in 2018. His colon 'exploded' following years of opioid usage when he was residing in a sober living facility in Southern California. The actor ended up needing five months of medical attention after spending two weeks in a coma.

Nevertheless, Several people are now in custody on charges related to Perry's death. Two physicians, Mark Chavez and Salvador Plasencia, are among the five individuals facing charges. As reported by People, prosecutors said in their petition that Chavez and Plasencia learned of Perry's need for the medication in September 2023 and offered him more injectable dosages of the medicine. According to the prosecution's court filings, Jasveen Sangha, who is also known as 'The Ketamine Queen,' reportedly supplied ketamine to Perry. Sangha gave the drug to Erik Fleming, a Hollywood filmmaker, and Fleming then transported it to Perry's residence in Pacific Palisades in return for money from Iwamasa. He reportedly purchased the dosage on the day of his death from her, according to the same document.