17 December 2023 , 11:26
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Matthew Perry "was never clean and lied about being sober", a friend of the late star has claimed and alleged.
During the week it was revealed that the Chandler Bing star, 54, had "high levels of ketamine" in his system before dying in his hot tub in October at his Los Angeles home.
The medical examiner's report was released on Friday and revealed: "Contributing factors in Mr. Perry’s death include drowning, coronary artery disease and the effects of buprenorphine (used to treat opioid use disorder)."
READ MORE: Friends star Matthew Perry's cause of death confirmed as accident from 'acute effects of ketamine'
Matthew was best-known for playing the role of Chandler Bing in Friends (mleblanc/Instagram)In the medical report obtained by The Mirror, it revealed Matthew was sober for 19 months after battling addiction for many years. He was on ketamine infusion therapy to help with his addiction.
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The report read: "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 medical examiner added that he probably "lapsed into unconsciousness" and drowned. No blunt force trauma was found and no foul play was suspected.
And now a close pal of the late star has spoken out about how he "lied to everyone" about being clean. Speaking to MailOnline, the unnamed friend said: "He lied to everyone about being clean. He never was. It is very sad. You know, the biggest lie he told was probably to himself."
An unnamed friend has spoken out about how Matthew was allegedly never cleanThey added that Matthew "could be quite a manipulative person when it came to his struggles with using", noting that it was a "struggle" and "such a battle" for him, with him battling "every day to the end".
Matthew had been open about how he struggled with drug and alcohol addiction throughout his life. He was once addicted to Vicodin and in 1997 he completed a 28-day detox programme.
Ahead of his memoir coming out last year, Matthew spoke to Diane Sawyer, where he was candid when speaking of his "55 Vicodin a day" habit. Speaking to Diane, he said: "I should have been the toast of the town, but I was in a dark room meeting with nothing but drug dealers and completely alone."
One year before his death, Matthew opened up about using ketamine - the drug listed in his autopsy - in his memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir. He spoke about getting ketamine infusions while in a Swiss rehab clinic during the pandemic.
He added that it had his name "written all over it", and described it as a "giant exhale", recalling how he would receive the drug in the clinic while blindfolded and listening to music.
Matthew wrote about how having the infusions would cause him to "disassociate", with him feeling as though he was "dying". Writing in his book, he penned: "'Oh,’ I thought, ‘This is what happens when you die'.
"Yet I would continually sign up for this s–t because it was something different, and anything different is good." He added: "Taking K is like being hit in the head with a giant happy shovel. But the hangover was rough and outweighed the shovel. Ketamine was not for me."
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