Matthew Perry’s cause of death has been revealed less than two months after the actor passed away at his Los Angeles home.
The Friends actor was found in his hot tub and pronounced dead at the scene.
Just a day after he was found in his home, the Los Angeles Police Department issued a statement that said Perry “was discovered by a witness unresponsive in his jacuzzi.”
The statement continued, “The Los Angeles City Fire Department responded to the scene and pronounced Perry deceased.”
There were no signs of foul play at the scene of Perry’s death, and some of his friends and co-stars later spoke out, claiming that he seemed to be in good spirits just before his passing.
Matthew Perry’s death was ruled accidental
Matthew Perry’s autopsy report came in on Friday afternoon, and the coroner called his death accidental.
According to the report, Perry had high levels of ketamine in his blood at the time of his death. He was receiving ketamine infusion therapy to treat depression and anxiety, with the last administration occurring just one and a half weeks before his death.
In the report, the medical examiner wrote that they didn’t believe the high level of ketamine in his blood was due to the infusion because the half-life of the dissociative anesthetic meant that he should not have had that much ketamine in his blood at the time of his death.
While the initial report listed no foul play, the autopsy reported that various pills were found at Perry’s residence after his death but that none of them were near him in the jacuzzi where he died.
The reasons listed for his untimely passing were drowning, coronary artery disease, and buprenorphine effects, according to an ABC News report.
Buprenorphine is a medication often used to treat those with opioid drug dependence. In the past, Perry spoke out about his addiction to Vicodin, which he began using after a jet skiing accident in 1997.
The Friends actor admitted that it was due to his use of opioids that he suffered a burst colon in 2019.
He spoke about his battle with addiction in a memoir released last year called Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing.
Matthew Perry wanted to be remembered for helping people
Though Matthew Perry was best known for playing Chandler Bing in Friends and starring roles in Fools Rush In, The Whole Nine Yards, and The Odd Couple, Perry wanted to be remembered for helping people.
He said he spoke out about his struggle with alcohol and prescription drug addiction to help others.
“When I die, I don’t want ‘Friends’ to be the first thing that’s mentioned,” Perry said while a guest on the Q With Tom Power podcast in 2022. “I want [helping people] to be the first thing that’s mentioned, and I’m gonna live the rest of my life proving that.”