RIP Matthew Perry - age 54
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Matthew Perry, who was best known for playing Chandler Bing on "Friends," has died at 54, according to reports.
Perry was found dead Saturday in his Los Angeles home, according to the Los Angeles Times and Rolling Stone.
Perry was on "Friends" for the run of the show from 1992-2004 and appeared in all 234 episodes.
Perry released his memoir, "Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing," in 2022, and opened up about life behind the scenes of the hit sitcom, chronicling his battle with alcohol and drugs. Perry wrote with candor and compassion and showed his dedication to continue to fighting a near-fatal battle.
"There is light in the darkness," Perry wrote in the prologue. "You just have to look hard enough to find it."
Perry reunited with the six original cast members of "Friends" hits HBO Max in 2021, for a sweet and emotional reunion at the Warner Bros. lot. The unscripted format allowed him to talk with co-stars Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer, and Matt LeBlanc.
Throughout the book, Perry details an array of health complications stemming from his substance use, including alcohol-induced erectile dysfunction and pancreatitis at age 30. But one of the most eye-opening experiences in his journey was when he nearly died at age 49 after his colon exploded from opioid use. As a result, the actor was in a coma, on life support, for two weeks. What followed was five months in the hospital and nine more with a colostomy bag – a traumatic experience that ultimately "miraculously remove(d) my desire to take drugs."
“My therapist said to me, ‘The next time you think about OxyContin, I want you to think about living out the rest of your days with a colostomy bag,'" he writes. "Having had a colostomy bag for nine long months, my therapist’s words hit hard. And when this man’s words hit hard, the prudent thing to do is to get into action immediately."
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How awful.
RIP
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Sorry to hear this. I thought he was quite funny in friends.
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I read that, at one time, Perry was taking up to 55 Vicodin per day, while working on "Friends."
Supposedly, there were no illicit drugs found at his home, but there were prescriptions for anti-depressants, etc.
Gotta wonder how one drowns in a hot tub unless there's some chemical misadventure going on.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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I read that, at one time, Perry was taking up to 55 Vicodin per day, while working on "Friends."
Supposedly, there were no illicit drugs found at his home, but there were prescriptions for anti-depressants, etc.
Gotta wonder how one drowns in a hot tub unless there's some chemical misadventure going on.
@George-K said in RIP Matthew Perry - age 54:
I read that, at one time, Perry was taking up to 55 Vicodin per day, while working on "Friends."
Supposedly, there were no illicit drugs found at his home, but there were prescriptions for anti-depressants, etc.
Gotta wonder how one drowns in a hot tub unless there's some chemical misadventure going on.
The acetaminophen alone would be enough to kill you. I suppose he could have had an MI and then drowned before that could kill him, but I suspect we'll find he nodded out.
Such an unhappy life for one so otherwise fortunate.
“I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” ~Winston S. Churchill
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I read it was a cardiac incident?
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Well, after that much recreational drug use, a lot of those guys have bad tickers.
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@Jolly said in RIP Matthew Perry - age 54:
Well, after that much recreational drug use, a lot of those guys have bad tickers.
Not saying...Just sayin'...
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Decades of alcohol and drug abuse and we’re blaming the Covid vaccine.
1950’s jazz musicians must have had time machines.
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@George-K said in RIP Matthew Perry - age 54:
I read that, at one time, Perry was taking up to 55 Vicodin per day, while working on "Friends."
Supposedly, there were no illicit drugs found at his home, but there were prescriptions for anti-depressants, etc.
Gotta wonder how one drowns in a hot tub unless there's some chemical misadventure going on.
The acetaminophen alone would be enough to kill you. I suppose he could have had an MI and then drowned before that could kill him, but I suspect we'll find he nodded out.
Such an unhappy life for one so otherwise fortunate.
@Mik said in RIP Matthew Perry - age 54:
Such an unhappy life for one so otherwise fortunate.
From an interview he gave a short while ago.
Alcohol’s sneaky power and the way it changes the perspectives and feelings of those who drink it gripped Perry like a vice, and he thought fame would give him the help he needed. So he prayed to become a celebrity, and he got his answer.
He told Power, “That prayer was, ‘Please, God, make me famous. You can do anything you to me; just make me famous.’ Three weeks later, I got ‘Friends,’ and God didn’t forget about the second part.”
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@Horace said in RIP Matthew Perry - age 54:
Seems he was wired for unhappiness, regardless of life circumstance.
I've occasionally wondered whether people are funny because they're unhappy or whether the connection is a more complex one with creativity in general.
I heard somebody interviewed recently - Jimmy Carr, I think, talking about standup, and he compared it to jazz in the 1930's, saying it's really a new art-form, with only a very small number of people making a success of it. Maybe it's not the only thing it has in common with that period of jazz. Not that Perry was a stand-up comedian, but he clearly had a natural comedic gift.
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Matthew Perry, the “Friends” actor who publicly struggled with drinking and drug use for decades, died from the “acute effects” of ketamine, an anesthetic with psychedelic properties, the Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office said in an autopsy report that was released on Friday.
Perry was found unresponsive in a hot tub at his home in Los Angeles on Oct. 28. He was 54.
The medical examiner’s office said that drowning, coronary artery disease and the effects of an opioid, buprenorphine, had contributed to his death.
But the autopsy ascribed his death primarily to “the acute effects of ketamine.” Ketamine is a powerful anesthetic that has become increasingly popular as an alternative therapy for depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and other hard-to-treat mental health problems. It is also used recreationally.
The autopsy report said that Perry had been on ketamine infusion therapy but that the ketamine in his system could not have been from his last known therapy session, which was about a week and a half before he died.
“At the high levels of ketamine found in his postmortem blood specimens, the main lethal effects would be from both cardiovascular overstimulation and respiratory depression,” the autopsy report said. It noted that the level of ketamine investigators found in Perry’s blood was equivalent to the amount that would be used during general anesthesia. -
@kluurs said in RIP Matthew Perry - age 54:
@George-K said in RIP Matthew Perry - age 54:
Of course not, you’ll get the Michael Jackson drug.
I can’t tell you how many times I heard that.
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Multiple arrests - drug dealers and a doc.
https://www.tmz.com/2024/08/15/matthew-perry-arrests-ketamine-death-investigation/
