Matthew Perry’s sister, Mia, became tearful as she opened up about losing her brother and the anger she felt while watching him battle addiction.
The actor, best known for playing Chandler Bing on Friends, died in 2023 at the age of 54 after drowning in a jacuzzi at his Los Angeles home following a ketamine overdose.
Five years earlier, Perry had come close to death when his colon ruptured after years of opioid misuse. Doctors gave him just a two per cent chance of survival.
Mia, who held power of attorney for her brother at the time, revisited the traumatic period in the Netflix documentary series The One About Matthew Perry.
Mia recalled: ‘In some ways, I felt honoured to be able to make those kinds of decisions for my brother. But I also experienced this intense anxiety and pressure.
‘I was away from my baby, post-partum and hormonal, and barely functioning.’
Matthew Perry’s sister Mia broke down while discussing her grief and frustration over his addiction in the Netflix documentary series The One About Matthew Perry
Mia said doctors were especially concerned because Perry was experiencing drug withdrawal while in hospital.
‘There is so much grief that family members and friends have to carry when someone they love is living with substance abuse,’ she said.
‘Grief has many different layers, and denial is one of them. I would often retreat into that place of denial.’
Fighting back tears, she continued: ‘It is a combination of being angry with myself for forgetting that reality, even briefly, and feeling angry with him.
‘You did this to yourself. I had just had a baby, and you were supposed to be an uncle. It was incredibly, incredibly difficult.
‘There had been so many close calls, overdoses and car crashes. All kinds of things had happened, but this was the only time when so many people were saying, “We have no idea whether he is going to come out of this.”’
Perry ultimately survived, and Mia said he broke down in tears when she told him what had happened.
Mia added: ‘Our role is not to make the feeling disappear. Our role is to sit with someone, let them experience it and make sure they do not have to face it alone.’
Perry continued to struggle with addiction until his death in 2023.
Mia said she had ‘learned how to hold gratitude and grief at the same time. That captured the way I felt while watching the documentary.’
Director Mary Robertson said: ‘Mia was able to give voice to experiences that belong uniquely to her, but there is clearly something universal in what she went through.’
Mia described the grief faced by families and friends of people struggling with substance abuse as she spoke publicly about her brother
RELATED: CNN’s Jake Tapper Reacts to Alleged Ilhan Omar DOB Fraud
Elsewhere in the series, Mia detailed the extraordinary efforts her brother made in an attempt to overcome his addiction.
The 17 Again star entered rehab 15 times and attended 6,000 AA meetings while battling long-term addictions to alcohol, prescription opioids including Vicodin and OxyContin, and later ketamine.
Mia, who is a psychotherapist, said: ‘My brother spoke about a sense of emptiness and loneliness that he could never quite fill.
‘He spent $7 million trying to get sober. That shows how seriously he took his illness.’
Perry began drinking beer and inexpensive wine at just 14. By the time he celebrated his 21st birthday, his drinking was already becoming increasingly unmanageable.
His dependence on Vicodin began after a jet-ski accident shortly after he joined Friends. Although the maximum recommended daily amount was eight tablets, he was taking about 55 a day by the end of the show’s third season.
In 1995, a former girlfriend who remained close to him urged Perry to seek medical help for his addiction.
That intervention led to his first stay in rehab, followed by many more. Even after leaving treatment, Perry knew he would eventually drink again, and lasted only nine weeks before relapsing.
In 2018, his opioid addiction contributed to pneumonia and a ruptured colon. Soon after being taken to hospital, he fell into a coma that lasted two weeks.
When he regained consciousness, he learned that doctors had fitted him with a colostomy bag, which he was required to use for the following nine months.
Even that devastating experience did not prevent him from returning to substance use.
Mia revealed the lengths Matthew Perry went to in his efforts to get sober. The One About Matthew Perry is streaming on Netflix now
Two years later, Perry’s heart stopped for five minutes after doctors at a luxury rehabilitation centre in Switzerland gave him a sedative that interacted with the opioids in his system.
He was resuscitated, but the process fractured eight of his ribs. As a result, he had to withdraw from a role alongside Meryl Streep in the film Don’t Look Up.
Following his death, five people were convicted in connection with the ketamine overdose. Those convicted included Perry’s drug counsellor, his so-called ‘Ketamine Queen’ dealer Jasveen Sangha and two doctors.
Kenneth Iwamasa, Perry’s longtime assistant, injected the Friends actor with ketamine repeatedly on the day he died. After pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine resulting in death, he was sentenced to more than three years in prison.
The One About Matthew Perry is available to stream on Netflix now.
If you are struggling with substance abuse in the UK, contact FRANK on 0300 123 6600. In the US, contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration on 1-800-662-4357.
