Matthew Perry’s mom said there was ‘inevitability’ to his death

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As the one year anniversary of his death approaches, Matthew Perry’s mother Suzanne Morrison is speaking about her final moments with her son.

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In an interview with the Today show’s Savannah Guthrie set to air Monday, Morrison opened about her relationship with the Friends star before his death on Oct. 28, 2023.

“He came up to me and said, ‘I love you so much and I’m so happy to be with you now,’ ” she shared of their last meeting alongside Perry’s loved ones. “It was almost as though it was a premonition of something. I didn’t think about it at the time but I thought, ‘How long has it been since we’ve had a conversation like that. It’s been years.’”

Morrison said that the encounter left her “worried.”

“I think there was something … there was an inevitability to what was going to happen next to him, and he felt it very strongly,” she continued. “But he said, ‘I’m not frightened anymore.’ And it worried me.”

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Guthrie called her upcoming conversation “powerful,” and said the interview is the first time Perry’s loved ones have “spoken about” his death as a family.

“There’s so much pain and sorrow, but (they) also have a real sense of purpose about the work that he was doing, helping others get sober,” she said. “It was the purpose of his life, and so there’s some stuff to announce around that too.” 

Earlier this week, Perry’s stepdad, Deadline correspondent Keith Morrison, and his half-sister Caitlin spoke about their work with the Matthew Perry Foundation, which was established in the wake of his death to help people struggling with addiction.

“The work that I’m doing now is very selfish because it kind of feels like I’m sitting right next to Matthew, working with him every day on something that was important to him,” Caitlin told HELLO! Canada.

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After playing pickleball earlier in the day, Perry, 54, was found unresponsive at his home on Oct. 28, 2023, by his assistant “floating face down in the heated end” of a hot tub.

An autopsy report released last December revealed Perry died from the acute effects of the anesthetic ketamine.

The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner deemed his death an accident and listed “drowning, coronary artery disease and buprenorphine effects” as secondary factors.

Perry, who had struggled with drug and alcohol addiction for much of his life, was reportedly “receiving ketamine infusion therapy for depression and anxiety,” according to USA Today.

In their summary, the medical examiner said the levels of ketamine in Perry’s body were in the range used for general anesthesia during surgery, and that his last treatment less than two weeks prior to his death would have dissipated within hours.

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“It is more likely this was recreational ketamine use,” Dr. Bankole Johnson told Page Six.

Although initially ruled an accident, TMZ reported in May that there was “an ongoing investigation into where Matthew got the ketamine that ended up playing a part in his death.”

Last year, the dealer who sold The Wire actor Michael K. Williams the fentanyl-laced heroin that caused his death was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Similarly, when actor Philip Seymour Hoffman died a decade ago of a fatal drug overdose, multiple people were arrested and taken into custody.

Earlier this summer, five people including his personal assistant and two doctors were charged in connection with Perry’s death in what prosecutors called a “broad underground criminal network.” So far, three of the five charged have pleaded guilty.

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The doctors preyed on Perry’s history of addiction in the final months of his life last year to provide him with ketamine in amounts they knew were dangerous, U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said as he announced the charges in August.

“They knew what they were doing was wrong,” Estrada said. “They knew what they were doing was risking great danger to Mr. Perry. But they did it anyway.”

One doctor even wrote in a text message, “I wonder how much this moron will pay” and “Lets find out,” according to the indictment.

DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said in one instance the actor paid $2,000 for a vial of ketamine that cost one of the physicians about $12. Perry paid the doctors about $55,000 in cash in the two months before his death, Estrada said.

After the arrests, Morrison and the rest of the actor’s family said they “look forward to justice taking its course.”

The full interview with Perry’s family airs Monday on the Today show.

— With files from the Associated Press

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