The One About Matthew Perry (2026) s01e03 Episode Script
Part III
[monitor beeping]
[rhythmic hissing]
[Mia] In 2018,
I was called to the hospital
because of a serious medical emergency
Matthew was going through.
I… I went into the ICU where Matthew
had been brought by the ambulance.
This is the exact same ICU
that I had just checked out of
after giving birth
about six weeks earlier.
I mean, I come in,
I am covered in milk and spit-up
and, like, you know, so postpartum,
and I'm just staring at him in the bed.
And it was the first time I had seen him
where I went like, "Oh, I don't…"
"We're… This is… this is it."
Like, "He's… he's… he's not waking up."
[tense music playing]
And, um, the doctors came in and explained
that his colon had ruptured…
[heart beating faintly]
…in several places,
causing, um, intense sepsis
throughout his entire body.
We have absolutely no idea
if he's gonna get through this.
[tense music continues]
At that point in the night,
a decision was made
to transfer him over to UCLA.
[door slamming shut]
And when they wheeled him
out of the ICU room, uh,
something was left on the ground
underneath his bed,
and it was a Batman action figure.
-[Mia crying]
-[monitor beeping]
[siren wailing]
[car engine revving]
[engine roaring]
[monitor beeping]
[Mia groans sadly]
He was absolutely obsessed with Batman
from a very young age.
[dramatic music playing]
Batman was just this thing
that kind of followed Matty
through his whole life.
He had this amazing collection
of Batman paraphernalia.
[audience applauding]
[Kimmel] This is how you're spending
that Friends money, on Batman.
[Matthew] Yeah. But I want to point out,
it's not dorky.
-[Kimmel] It's not?
-[Matthew] No.
[audience cheering and applauding]
[Mia] Of course,
Michael Keaton's is his favorite.
And Matty playing Michael Keaton on SNL
is maybe one of my favorite clips of him.
-[buzzer beeps]
-[man] Mr. Keaton.
-[in a raspy voice] I'm Batman.
-[audience laughing]
[Mia] But I think
it actually resonated on a deeper level
in terms of the backstory piece of it,
of having a troubled childhood
and coming out of that to become this hero
and using wealth for good.
-Maybe it's time for me to just tell you…
-[Kimmel laughing]
-And don't tell anybody else.
-Okay.
-I'm Batman.
-[Kimmel] You're Batman.
[music swells]
[music fades]
[car approaching]
[faint traffic hum]
[birds chirping]
[Mia] While Matthew was in a coma,
I was there with him every single day.
I would just sit in the ICU room
staring at him.
I wasn't the only one
who was there every single day.
My parents came.
All of his other siblings were there.
His mom and his stepdad were there.
I got to know his other siblings
better than I ever have before,
which was really touching.
[monitor beeping]
There were multiple surgeries done on him,
trying to repair his colon.
[low bass hum]
At one point, the decision was made
to put him on an ECMO machine,
which is basically like an iron lung.
It was taking
all of the blood out of his body,
cleaning it in a big machine,
and then sticking it back into his body.
[monitor beeping]
One can only be on ECMO
for a certain period of time
before the body
just starts to sort of deteriorate.
His, like, fingertips were turning black,
and there was a possibility
that he would lose his fingers
if we keep him on too long.
But when do you pull him off?
[Roger] Every day,
we would get reports from his sister
that was like,
"Please, just pull out of this,"
because every day was touch and go.
A lot of people talking about
how maybe, uh, this is…
Like, we're not gonna see Matthew again.
Um, he had appointed me power of attorney
at some point.
And, um, you know,
in some ways, I was really honored
to get to be the person to make
these sort of choices for my brother.
But I also felt
this really intense anxiety and pressure,
and I'm away from my baby,
and I'm postpartum and hormonal
and really just sort of…
barely functioning.
[melancholic music playing]
And then the doctors realized
that he was going into drug withdrawal.
[tense music playing]
Opiates can slow down
your digestive tract dramatically,
and, um, that's what caused the rupture.
[monitor beeping]
And it was like a slap in the face,
like, "Oh, right. Of course."
"Of course this had to do with that."
[exhales deeply]
There's so much grief family members
and friends have to sit with
when their loved ones are struggling
with substance abuse.
And…
There are many layers and aspects
to grief, and one of them is denial.
And I would fall
into that denial place often.
Um…
So it's a mixture of kind of feeling…
[chuckles ruefully]
…a little mad at myself
for forgetting that reality,
even for a few minutes.
[sniffles]
I was certainly angry at him.
"You did this to yourself, man."
"Like, I just had a baby.
You're supposed to be an uncle right now."
[breath trembling]
Like…
Yeah, it's really, really, really hard.
We've had a lot of near misses.
There's been overdoses.
There's been car accidents.
There's been all sorts of stuff.
[ominous music playing]
But this was the only time
that there were a lot of people going,
"I don't…"
"We have no idea
if he's coming out of this thing."
[music continues]
[birds chirping]
About two weeks in, he did start
to show signs that he was waking up.
It would be an eye blink
or a squeeze on the hand.
One of the mornings, I walked in,
and he goes, "Hey, sister."
[tearfully] And that was obviously
a really big deal.
I hadn't heard him talk yet.
Uh…
And I said, "Hey, brother."
[laughing]
[sniffles]
"How you doing?"
[laughs and sniffles]
Um, he didn't talk a lot.
I'm gonna get tears on my shirt.
Uh…
[clears throat]
He didn't talk a lot in the beginning.
It took… it took a while for him
to have the strength and the wherewithal.
But he asked me.
He asked me what happened. And, um…
Yeah, I explained the entire thing to him.
And I just remember he was really quiet,
and he just kind of quietly
closed his eyes
and, uh…
and just started crying.
[sniffles]
[breath trembling]
[melancholic music playing]
Our job isn't
to try to make the feeling go away.
Our job is to sit with the person
and allow them…
allow them to have the feeling…
[sniffles]
…but not have to do it by themselves.
[sniffles, clicks tongue]]
-[chuckling]
-[baby coos]
[Mia] He was in the hospital
for a long time.
And, uh, we would bring our daughter,
and she would sit on my dad's lap
and play with him and make Matthew smile.
I remember I went to go, uh, visit him
at the UCLA, uh, hospital,
um, hung out with him for a little bit.
His dad was there. His dad apparently
was there every day, which was very sweet.
And Matthew was just, you know,
"I just dodged another bullet."
Of course, there was jokes about that.
It's all like, you know,
real gallows humor and stuff like that.
'Cause that's really a lot of…
the only way, at least for me,
you can get through certain things.
And I… I think for him too.
But he was legitimately scared.
Like, when he found out
that he was in a coma.
Yeah, that's scary.
I never wanted to die.
But I did so many drugs at certain times
that I knew that it could kill me.
I was given a 2% chance
to survive the night.
They didn't tell me that, obviously,
because I wasn't really there,
but they told my family.
They put you on an ECMO machine
when it's a Hail Mary,
and five people were on ECMO that night,
and the other four died,
and I somehow made it.
Well, um, God is… is a fan.
[audience laughing and applauding]
When he got out of the coma,
and he was out of danger,
we all had this really hopeful,
like, joyous kind of feeling.
Like, "He made it. Yes!"
You know, "He made it,
and it's going to be good from now on."
There was a part of me
that was cautiously optimistic
about what would be happening for him
in his future.
I kind of was thinking,
"Is this his rock bottom?"
If that was the thing he was needing,
that maybe this was that wake-up call.
[pensive music playing]
Matthew ended up having been
in the hospital for three months.
Even when he went home,
he was still in really, really bad shape.
He had a completely open wound in his gut
that wasn't fully and completely healed.
He had a colostomy bag.
Like he couldn't…
He… he… he aged 20 years in three months.
He could barely walk.
Um, so 24-7 nurses, sober companions,
just constantly surrounded
by people caring for him.
And, you know, he went through…
He had a few really lovely assistants
throughout the years.
Um, some hung around longer than others.
Um…
I'm not gonna remember what year it was
that Kenny started working for him.
[pensive music continues]
Kenny was Matthew's manager's assistant
for 30 years.
And so I met Kenny when I was a child.
Kenny was always kind of chatting
and hanging out and spending time with us
and getting to know us and, um…
We all really liked him.
And we all really, really trusted him.
And, uh…
when he started working for Matthew
after the surgeries to repair his colon,
we were all really happy about it.
We thought it was a really good fit.
Um…
[groans softly]
[pensive music continues]
[exhales softly]
Matthew really, really trusted him.
I mean, they were together
every single day.
And then around that same time,
Matthew started doing
a lot of his own internal processing
around the years that had led up to
what had happened to him.
He was really going back
over his relationships
with the women in his life.
[Matthew] As far as marriage
and having kids go,
you know, I think that's definitely, uh,
down the road for me.
I think I have to go on a second date
in order to, you know, get that rolling,
get that started.
I would consider
several of his relationships
serious girlfriends for sure.
And whether they would last a year,
two years,
whatever it may be…
Uh…
[groans]
I don't know how to say it,
but I think it would…
[hesitates]
He would move on quickly
and then regret moving on.
"I loved her so much."
"Why did I do that?
I made a terrible mistake."
"Don't mention her name."
I remember one time he said to me,
which really resonated, he said,
um, because I was complaining,
something about my kids.
And he was like, "Roger, I would give
everything I have to have what you have."
[music swells]
[Mia] He went through this period
where he was having some feelings
about maybe the ones that got away,
or where he was mentally and emotionally
when he was with them,
and kind of wishing he could go back.
[birds chirping]
[phone ringing]
[woman] In 2020, Matthew called me,
and he said,
"I had a near-death experience,
and I thought of you."
"And I want to be able to talk to you
about this stuff."
[tense music playing]
My name is Rome,
and Matthew was a former boyfriend
and turned into one of my best friends
in the world.
[mellow music playing]
I was born in Iran and came here as a kid.
It was tough
to be in one culture inside the house
and then go out in the world
and experience a different culture
and feel very different.
So, you know, I found relief in alcohol.
I found relief in drugs,
and at a pretty young age,
I… I went into recovery,
and, um, I met many wonderful people.
[tense music playing]
I met Matthew in 2009
at a recovery meeting.
[Matthew] My name is Matthew,
and I'm an alcoholic.
And I remember walking in
and recognizing him right away
because it's Matthew Perry,
and he's not just famous,
but he's worldwide famous.
And I don't know how to describe it,
but I could sense that he had noticed me.
I went home, and I got a friend request
from him on Facebook.
[notification ping]
And I accepted.
And we kind of became friendly after that.
And two years later, we started dating.
I think what we had in common
was he felt comfortable
in very, you know, real-life situations,
more than going to a party
and making small talk with people.
He took me to a hockey game.
We would go
to doctor's appointments together.
It was like we were trying to,
you know, take care of our bodies
and be better and support each other.
One day he's like,
"Oh, your neck is hurting?"
"I'm going to take you
to the chiropractor."
And I was like,
"This is the most romantic thing ever."
The chiropractor cracks my neck,
and it was like my whole world opened up.
And Matthew was smiling this warm,
loving smile, like, "Yeah, it's okay."
That day I took a picture of him,
and he said,
"Rome, this is my favorite picture
anyone's ever taken of me."
And that was the day
that I fell in love with him.
[pensive music playing]
We were together
in a romantic relationship
for about two and a half years,
but he would disappear
for periods of time, you know?
And I just thought to myself at the time,
"Well, I just have to be patient
with this person."
Intimacy was his greatest wish
and biggest fear.
And so it's like, "Okay, uh, stay away,
but please come here and don't leave."
[phone ringing]
One day he called me and he said,
"I've been seeing someone on and off
this entire year."
Um, "Her name is Laura,
and I want you to know."
[tense music playing]
In that moment,
everything that I thought I knew
was no longer true.
It was a fracture of reality.
I started crying, and it was…
It took me months
to feel even a little bit normal.
And then one day
I get a friend request from Laura,
and I was like, "What is this?"
Turns out Matthew and Laura
had also broken up,
and she said,
"Do you want to go to dinner and talk?"
[music stops abruptly]
Like, "Yes, absolutely."
[music continues]
I really liked her immediately.
I was like, "Oh, I thought I was special.
She's special too. She's awesome."
And we became friends.
And I saw
how she always wanted the best for him,
and I saw
how much quicker she was to forgive.
It took me longer.
[mellow music playing]
Matthew and I,
we didn't speak for six years,
but he called me after his colon ruptured,
and he shared that he learned a lot
about appreciating things
while they're here
and wanting to connect
with the people in your life
that are important.
And we became friends again.
[David] His good friends out here
were mostly Laura and Rome and myself.
Sadly, Roger moved to Michigan,
but Matthew, he didn't go out
as much as he used to.
Because his health was so bad,
he hadn't really been out in public
since 2018.
But in 2021,
he decided to participate
in the Friends reunion.
I think he was very nervous
about coming kind of back out.
I think he wanted to be like,
"I'm here. I'm good. Everything's fine."
Um, which was only sort of like half true
at that point.
He was still very much on the mend.
I do remember, uh,
around the time of the Friends reunion,
Matthew being, uh, focused on being sober,
struggling with sobriety,
knowing the import of this.
Um…
Long-awaited, right? A lot of pressure.
[reporter 1] The celebration
of the show's 25th anniversary.
[reporter 2] The cast will sit down
together in an unscripted special.
[reporter 3] Could you be
any more excited?
[crew member] Quiet on the set, please.
[pensive music playing]
[Mary] For the reunion,
they pulled the sets out of storage,
and they filmed in the studio.
I don't think that they had
publicly reunited the whole entire cast
since the show was over.
-[David] Wow.
-[Lisa laughing]
[Mary] And it was very emotional.
But Matthew Perry
was sort of like the wild card.
[melancholic music playing]
[Mia] You know, the energy and life force
in him was really diminished
after going through what he went through.
[Matthew] Hello.
[Matt LeBlanc blowing kisses]
-How are you, bud?
-Good.
[Mary] He was frail physically.
He was very frail
emotionally and psychologically.
But he spoke very authentically
about his deep insecurity
and about the fear that he felt
almost every time he had to tell a joke
that the joke wouldn't land.
I would sometime say a line,
and they wouldn't laugh,
and I would sweat.
I felt like I was gonna die
if they didn't laugh.
In the reunion, I think Matthew
behaviorally… announced
that he had been on his own road.
I think he knew
he couldn't get to the place
that everybody would want him maybe to be
or that he would want to be.
I think he was really aware of that.
He hadn't been on camera in a while.
And you could see him struggling in it.
It's tough to watch
because he's just not himself.
[interviewer] What do you remember
about Matthew's, um, experience of that?
[inhales and exhales deeply]
I don't really wanna talk about that
because, yeah, it just…
Yeah, it really kind of speaks for itself.
[dry chuckle]
[pensive music playing]
And afterwards, it was hard to see
the comments online about it.
[notification beep]
[notification beep]
[notification beep]
It was predictable, but… but difficult.
I mean, after it aired,
I think he felt… he felt relieved.
And, um, after he filmed it,
I know he felt really tired.
Like he was kind of at this place of,
"How am I going to keep going?"
I know he was really scared. I know
he was really fighting for his life.
I know that a lot of parts of him
did not think it was possible
for him to live a sober life.
I don't think I gave up hope.
But…
I started, unfortunately, kind of thinking
of his disease as a terminal illness.
[clicks tongue]
He FaceTimed me unexpectedly one night,
and he was, uh, missing some teeth.
And he was facing having to have
all of his teeth repaired,
and that he knew that that was going
to put him back on opiates for pain.
And he was, um…
he was deathly afraid of, um,
that spiral again.
I think Matthew suffered immensely
from depression.
And I think that he really tried
to do everything he could
to feel okay in his own skin
and was desperate for a solution.
[melancholic music playing]
Later, I saw Matty.
He had detoxed
from all the pain medication
and was starting to get his energy back.
And he was going to a ketamine clinic
as needed.
[Mia] At the time,
studies were starting to show up
that ketamine could be really beneficial
in the treatment of depression
and substance use disorder.
And a lot of the research was promising
and pretty exciting.
So he started using it
in clinical settings.
And he was like,
"This is it. This is helping me."
[low bass hum]
He shared that he felt like he had
a spiritual experience in the ketamine.
[resonant drop]
That he had seen
that we had multiple lives…
[car engine roaring]
…that he felt like
he saw God in the ketamine.
[projector whirring]
I think that's what was drawing him
towards it.
[music intensifies]
[music fades]
[West] Afterwards,
he felt relieved from his darkness.
[birds chirping]
It gave him a lot of freedom and energy.
And… [inhales deeply]
…I just heard a lot of hope in his voice,
you know?
[Mia] As a therapist,
I was always skeptical
about the idea of using…
a substance to treat
a substance use disorder.
But, um,
he'd go get his ketamine injection,
and he seemed the best he'd ever been.
[bubbles popping]
He's present. He's showing up.
He seems happy.
-[tape ripping]
-What?
[shouts] What?
Oh my!
We're hanging out. His nieces love him.
-[man] Look at that thing.
-It's for you.
[laughter]
-[woman] She is looking.
-[indistinct chatter]
[woman] Let's taste him.
[Mia] You know,
and he's a part of the family again.
-Oh, we'll have fun with this.
-[woman] It's like half of a tennis court.
You too.
[Mia] And then right around that time…
[phone ringing]
…he called me up one day and asked me,
"Do you think it's okay
if I were to write a memoir?"
[bright music playing]
And I was insanely torn.
The protective parts of myself,
of our father, of my mom,
of everybody in our lives…
[rapid clicks]
…was like, "Absolutely not. Are you…? No."
And then this other kind of wiser voice
came up and was like…
[inhales and exhales deeply]
…"You gotta let him do
what he's gonna do."
So that's what I told him.
[chuckling]
-[keypad clicking]
-[Matthew] It all flew out of me.
Like it all just kind of dropped
onto the page.
[Rome] He was just always creating.
Despite, you know,
how he may feel on a certain day
or what was going on,
he was always creating.
[Matthew] The most challenging things
to write
-were when things got really dark.
-[keyboard clacking]
[Kevin] He would mention, um,
"I'm working on this book.
It's gonna help a lot of people."
"And I'm gonna tell everything."
[soft piano music plays]
During days, weeks, months of clarity,
he was a single-minded…
missile attacking this effort.
And I remember reading, uh, it.
He gave me like a little advance thing.
And I was like,
"Wow, you're being, uh…
being real honest in this thing."
[tense music playing]
[Mary] In 2022,
Matthew Perry published his memoir.
The book was highly anticipated.
I've read a lot of celebrity memoirs
in which drug addiction or alcoholism
played a part
and recovery played a part.
I don't think I've ever read a… a memoir
that was quite as raw.
"Hi, my name is Matthew."
"Although you may know me
by another name."
"My friends call me Matty."
"And I should be dead."
It was revelatory about the toll
that years of abusing opioids and alcohol
will take on the tissues
of the human body.
"What I needed was two front teeth
and a colostomy bag that didn't break."
"When I say
I woke up covered in my own shit,
I'm talking 50, 60 times."
[poignant music playing]
For him to be
so brutally honest about himself,
his insecurities,
his fears,
he laid it all out.
I was impressed by how much he was sharing
and the bravery and the vulnerability
it took to do that.
And then he went on a huge press tour.
I would go to open houses
and go to the bathrooms
in the… in the open house
and see what pills they had in there
and steal them.
And I think they thought,
"Oh, there's no way
that Chandler came in and stole from us."
It felt like he was trying as hard
as he could to be as authentic as possible
with this giant spotlight on him.
Six thousand AA meetings.
Therapy, thirty years.
-Fifteen rehabs…
-Yeah.
…maybe at least.
Half of your life in treatment
or in sober living houses.
Yeah, I mean, detox is hell.
You know? There is a hell, I know it.
I can… It has tangible features.
I can describe it.
And I would make the decision
to have, like,
five, six hours of being high
and knowing
that six days of that was coming.
And I would make that decision
over and over and over again.
I think he had finally found
a purpose in life through like real hell.
-[cheering and applause]
-[Whoopi] Please welcome Matthew Perry.
[Matthew] Number one bestseller.
-Number one book around the world.
-[audience cheering]
[Mia] His book was
such an instant success.
[talk show host] Congratulations,
I heard you broke Amazon.
They couldn't handle it.
[fan] Matthew!
He was just really excited about that
and really proud of that.
[fans clamoring]
[David] He loved that the book
was a huge success.
He, uh, would not let me, uh, forget that.
"This book is a real big success."
I was like, "I know. Yeah, I know."
He's like, "But like really big."
"Like, off the charts,
like most sold of a certain thing."
I was like, "Yeah, we get it."
He was the happiest
we'd really ever seen him.
[cheering and applause]
-Yeah.
-Thanks for being here.
[cheering and applause continues]
I missed… I missed you guys.
I missed all of you.
[audience cheering]
-Very nice.
-Isn't it?
-Yeah.
-It's nice. It's very pleasant.
I think the memoir, in a lot of ways,
was accomplishing his life's work.
[poignant music plays]
He had been trying to scale a mountain
for his entire life,
and he was looking out
over this beautiful view
of all of the hard work
and all of the roughness
and everything that he had been through,
and he'd actually made it
to the top of that mountain.
The real thing for me,
and the troubles that I've had,
is that reality is an acquired taste.
-That's what I believe.
-[Bill laughs]
That's a great line.
-[Matthew] And…
-[audience laughing and applauding]
I have had a great deal of time,
a great deal of problems acquiring it.
[Bill] Right.
And, uh, it wasn't until I became…
I became really safe,
I felt really safe in my sobriety
and really strong in my sobriety.
And to tell you the truth,
I am resilient, and I am strong.
[audience applauding and whistling]
[Kevin] I'd spent too much time with him
when he was winning the battle.
So when he says,
"I'm actually in a great place,"
you don't just want to believe it,
you need to believe it.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Roger] Um…
He threw a little par…
a little dinner party for me at his house
because I was visiting…
[inhales deeply]
…and, uh, I was staying there with him.
I was, at that time, living in, uh, out…
just outside of Detroit.
I had a nice visit.
A lot of great friends came,
and we had a lot of fun.
And then the next day, he woke up late,
and I was kind of getting ready to leave,
to go to the airport.
And he was like,
"No, no, I'm sorry I slept in."
"Stay a couple more days."
"Stay a couple more days,
and, you know, I'll take care of it."
"Whatever, you know,
I'll change your flight."
"And, you know, if you're missing money
from work or whatever, I'll cover that."
"Just stay a couple more days."
I was like, "No, man, I gotta go."
"You know, I'm supposed to be there
for my kid's show."
[plane engines roaring]
[music intensifies]
[music stops abruptly]
I just wish now, in hindsight,
I would have…
[breathes deeply]
[voice breaks] …that I would have stayed.
[gulps, stifles a sob]
[haunting music playing]
[Mia] I was at a conference in Denver.
And since the conference was in downtown,
my husband, David,
was going to come down to Denver,
and we were going to go out to dinner
and have like a little date night.
I told David
I would meet him at the bar in the hotel.
[Roger] It was October 28th,
and it was right before Halloween.
My kids and I are like,
we're going to one of those mazes
where they hide and scare you,
and I'm standing in the line
with my girls,
and we're next.
[Mia] I was just sitting.
There's like a big snowstorm outside,
and I, like, look up through the doors,
and David comes kind of flying in.
And, um…
At first, I just was looking at him like,
"Oh, he looks a little…"
"I wonder how far he had to walk
in the snowstorm from the parking spot."
Um, and he walks
into the very crowded hotel bar
and kind of gestures to me
to, like, come to him.
And I walk up to him,
and he's just staring at me
with this kind of look on his face,
and I said, "What, what? What?"
[phone ringing]
[Roger] Then all of a sudden,
I get a call from David Pressman.
And I wasn't answering because…
I was about to walk into this maze.
But then he called again and again,
and then finally, I told my kids,
"Let me just walk over here a minute
and get this call."
The first thing I said was,
"Is everything okay?"
And he was like, "No, not really."
And then all I said was, "No."
I just… All I kept saying was,
"No, no, no, no," because I knew.
[inhales deeply]
[exhales and stifles a sob]
[voice wavers] I knew
what he was going to say.
And then he put his…
his hands on my arms and said,
"It's your brother. He's gone."
[trembling breath]
[crying] And I said, "What do you mean?"
And he said,
"Matty's gone."
[inhales deeply]
And I just stared at him, and, um…
And I said, "No, he's not."
Didn't cry, didn't have a single reaction.
I just said, "No, he's not."
[wind gusting]
[Roger] I mean, I just heard the news
that my best friend died.
But… [breathes deeply]
My kids are there,
so I had to try to, like…
[gulps]
…gather myself.
I get in the car, and I take my kids
to their grandmother's house.
I just put my head down
and cried for about an hour.
I couldn't stop crying.
You know, there's a quote in his book.
And I don't know
if it was the book or an interview.
And he says something like,
"It's world… It's weird to be in a world
where if I died, it would be shocking
but not surprising."
I don't know if that's the actual quote.
Something like that.
And I felt that.
I really felt that.
Um, it was shocking how it happened.
But there was a really big part of me
that had been…
prepping for this for a while.
[inhales deeply]
I was not entirely surprised at all.
To be quite frank, I was pissed.
I was angry.
Because I was like,
"Come on, man. What?" You know?
[breath trembling] You know? Like…
[exhales deeply]
It's so final.
[angrily] "Why are you gone?" You know?
[melancholic music playing]
"Do you know what a hole you're gonna…?"
[gulps, suppresses a sob]
[crying] Yeah.
[crickets chirping]
[music swells]
[Mia] I pull my phone out.
And I realize at that moment
that my phone had been turned off all day
because I was at a conference.
[sniffles]
And so I turned my phone on,
and immediately…
[mimics buzzing]
…just, like, blowing up.
And the first person
who's calling me is, uh…
Matthew's friend Robin.
[shudders] And, um…
[crying] And I pick up the phone and…
On speaker. I kind of just do that.
And she goes, "Oh, honey! Tell me
it's not true. Tell me it's not true."
"It's not true, right?"
And I said, "I… I don't know. I don't…"
"How do you know?"
[voice wavers] And she goes,
"TMZ already has it."
[sniffling, suppresses a sob]
[cries softly]
[exhales deeply]
[reporter 1] The shocking and tragic death
of actor Matthew Perry.
[reporter 2] The actor was found dead
in a Jacuzzi
where it appears he has drowned.
[reporter 3] Police are awaiting
more information
to try to make sense
of Matthew Perry's sudden death.
[wipers ticking]
[mellow music playing]
I remember my phone started blowing up…
with texts.
And my reaction was, "No."
[clicks tongue, inhales deeply]
[exhales with a heave]
I was at a UCLA football game
with my son and, uh…
Oh wow.
[forced exhale to suppress a sob]
[shuddering sob]
[crying] It's weird.
[voice breaks] And, uh…
[suppresses a sob]
[clicks tongue]
[music fades]
[slaps thigh]
[melancholic music playing]
[reporter] The world is saying goodbye
to a beloved actor
and one of our best friends.
Well, I've been fighting tears
since I got here.
He was my favorite one
because he made me laugh all the time,
so this is not easy.
[chuckles ruefully]
It sucks.
I feel like everyone could turn on the TV
and feel immediately comforted by him.
To have that connection with an audience
is a wonderful, sacred thing.
[female fan] You don't know how much
somebody that you admire
can actually hit you so much.
[Kevin] I think there was
a lot of need for us to talk about it
and celebrate his life.
[in Thai] Shockwaves rock the industry.
Matthew Perry passes away.
[in French] Yesterday,
I shed a little tear.
[in Spanish] It feels like
I have lost a friend.
[in Russian] I just can't calm down.
I'm crying, my nose is all runny,
my eyes are all red.
[in Spanish] When we have a problem,
we need to talk to each other.
He was helping people,
and he was changing their lives.
Every year on his birthday,
I didn't care what was going on.
I would…
I would text him or call him and tell him,
"Thank you for saving my life."
Because it meant something.
[Jeff] We have this sort of
unlikely superhero.
A vulnerable, air-filled cartoon
of a superhero.
He meant so much in so many ways.
[reporter] His fellow actors, in a joint
statement to People Magazine, said,
"We were more than just castmates.
We are a family."
"We're going to take a moment to grieve
and process this unfathomable loss."
[music swells]
[birds chirping]
[deep, shuddering breath]
So, at the funeral,
we arranged for, like, just…
just the family to have it…
[sobs]
…be open casket for a little while
for all of us.
That was… that was when I completely…
completely broke down.
The funeral was very small.
Close friends and family only.
I remember, like,
sitting in the front row with our family
and seeing his mom
and all the other siblings.
[crying] And then
the rest of the Friends cast
all walked in together.
And I hadn't seen them in easily 20 years.
[inhales deeply]
And, um…
Jen Aniston was the first one of them
to come up to me and give me a huge hug.
But they… they all did.
And then all five of them
walked up to the casket holding hands and…
[crying]
…stood around him crying.
And, um…
[tearful chuckle]
…it came time to move him.
Our dad, whose health isn't great,
walked just right behind him.
And we transferred him over to this area
where he was going to be, uh,
put in kind of like
a mausoleum type of thing.
And that was the first time
that I felt Matthew with me.
[sobbing]
And he showed up
right behind my right shoulder
and leaned over my shoulder and goes,
"How fucked-up is this?"
[laughing] And I…
[sniffles]
…started laughing so hard.
And, um… [sniffles]
I was like, "Oh my God."
Like, there he is, making me laugh
at the most horrible moment.
And also incredibly inappropriate
for me to start laughing
while they're putting him
into this thing, um…
[laughing]
[sniffles]
But I just started cracking up.
And I was like,
"Yeah, man, this is pretty fucked-up."
"This is… This is definitely…"
"This is really fucked-up."
But what I remember about
seeing his casket
being put in the mausoleum…
So it's just…
It's pushed into the wall.
Two guys came out of nowhere,
sealed it up,
put two plastic vases of flowers down.
That was it.
And there was, you know, just…
That's how it ends.
[clicks tongue]
Um, and the first thought,
I was just like,
"Matthew inside there
doing the goot face."
[melancholic music playing]
[camera clicks]
[camera clicks]
[camera clicks]
[Kevin] I think
my brain went to solve the mystery.
[splutters]
You know, it…
There were just questions of how.
How did this…?
And the story was so murky.
[reporter 1] Matthew Perry's
cause of death
is now under investigation.
The LA coroner's office
waiting for toxicology reports
to see if there were
any foreign substances
that could have contributed
to the star's death.
We didn't know anything
about how Matthew had died.
[inhales deeply]
The… the story that most of us
were thinking had happened
was that he'd had a heart attack
while sitting in his Jacuzzi.
But we were all waiting
on an autopsy report.
[reporter 2] Los Angeles officials
finally revealing
Friends star Matthew Perry's
cause of death.
[reporter 3] The County Medical
Examiner's office says
the 54-year-old died
from the acute effects of ketamine.
[tense music playing]
That was the first time that I'd found out
that he was doing extra ketamine
on the side.
[keyboard clacking]
I remember just so many different
conflicting feelings coming in.
"Can you die from a ketamine overdose?"
"Is that a thing?
I don't think that's a thing."
To, "What the fuck was he doing
with more ketamine?"
It was just a flood of confusion.
[music fades]
[car approaching]
[car whizzes past]
-[man 1] We're shooting. This should be…
-[man 2] Checking audio. One, two, three.
Audio check, one, two, three. Good? Okay.
[indistinct chatter]
[tense music playing]
Good morning. My name is Martin Estrada.
I'm the United States Attorney
based in Los Angeles.
I do remember the moment
of Matthew Perry's passing.
I heard it like everyone else did,
on the news.
And it was shocking and tragic.
What I later learned is that
it wasn't just tragic, it was criminal.
[sirens wailing]
[indistinct police radio chatter]
[siren wailing]
[Martin] Right after Mr. Perry's death,
LAPD secured the scene,
and they began to collect evidence.
Officers interviewed Kenny Iwamasa,
Mr. Perry's live-in assistant,
and were able to collect the phones
of Mr. Perry and Mr. Iwamasa.
It's sort of like a spider's web.
You start from the middle,
and you build out and out
and gather all the evidence possible
to make sure you're not missing anything.
We were not investigating Matthew Perry
as a suspect of any sort.
It was clear from the outset that,
if anything, he was the victim
of some sort of drug dealing
which caused his death.
So for us,
what was important at that point
was to discover who the people were
who were responsible for that death.
We are here today
with our law enforcement partners
to announce federal criminal charges
related to the death
of the actor Matthew Perry.
[clicks tongue]
That investigation has revealed
a broad underground criminal network
responsible for distributing
large quantities of ketamine
to Mr. Perry and others.
We learned in around September of 2023,
Mr. Perry begins looking
for sources of supply for the ketamine.
There were not one but two medical doctors
involved in supplying these drugs,
these risky, dangerous drugs,
to Mr. Perry.
[camera clicking]
Salvador Plasencia and…
[camera clicking]
…Mark Chavez.
They become essentially
street-level dealers to Mr. Perry,
supplying him with ketamine
at exorbitant rates.
[tense music playing]
We uncovered messages
which showed Plasencia was trying
to maximize profit from Mr. Perry.
At one point saying to Mark Chavez,
"I wonder how much this moron will pay,"
referring to Mr. Perry.
[David] You've got two doctors
texting each other,
"How much will this moron pay?"
You know, it was sad,
but I wasn't really that surprised
that there was people like that.
These defendants took advantage
of Mr. Perry's addiction issues
to enrich themselves.
Dr. Plasencia charged him over $55,000
over a two-week period.
After buying
from Dr. Plasencia and Dr. Chavez,
Mr. Perry went
to a different source of supply.
Erik Fleming was a go-between
for Jasveen Sangha.
She was a prolific distributor
and cultivated this glamorous persona
as this ketamine queen.
And she sold the dosage of ketamine
that ultimately resulted
in the death of Mr. Perry.
We charged five defendants in this matter.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Mia] I'm on the phone with my mother.
"And the last person…"
We're going, "Who could it be?
Who could it be? Who could it be?"
And then both of us have this moment
where we go,
"Oh my God, I hope it's not Kenny."
This network included a live-in assistant.
[tense music playing]
Kenny Iwamasa at times was the conduit
for obtaining ketamine,
at other times was the person
who administered the ketamine
through injections to Mr. Perry.
Kenny's known my brother
for 30 years.
He knows what he's battling.
The level of betrayal we all felt, um…
He should have known better.
He could have quit his job.
He could have come and told
one of the family members.
He could have done
a lot of different things.
He could have made
a lot of different choices.
[sniffles]
I felt really, um,
like I had been duped,
deeply.
[interviewer] Can you tell me
about the indictments
when you heard about those?
So this is the funny part
of the documentary.
This is, like, the real…
this is the real hilarious part
of the documentary.
Um… [chuckles]
I, uh…
[exhales deeply]
You know, all of that was very strange.
Then finding out what actually happened.
Well, first of all, I hope they all get
the justice that they deserve.
But I would say
Matthew was a serious addict,
and he just couldn't shake it.
But with people like that in your orbit,
who are taking advantage
of your addiction and your wealth,
I don't think he stood much of a chance.
[pensive music playing]
[Mia] I wasn't sure if I was gonna go
to any of the hearings.
Like, I didn't understand
how I could possibly withstand
seeing one of these people.
But in the days leading up to it,
I decided to go.
Um…
And I… I did speak, and I shared
as not only Matthew's, uh, sister,
but as a psychotherapist.
And, um, there was a moment
of some kind of catharsis,
release, redemption.
I'm not sure what the word is,
but something came off of my chest
that had been lingering there for…
Well, since he had died.
[melancholic music playing]
[leaves rustling]
[Mia] Our dad has been, uh, ill
for a long time.
And I know my father would
love to be able to participate
in helping to share the story of his son.
[clicks tongue]
Uh, but unfortunately,
he's just not well enough to do that.
And, um… it really sort of fell to me
to be able to talk
about the Perry side of the family.
[interviewer] What do you think
your dad would say about this
if he were sitting here?
[exhales deeply]
Yeah.
What would he say?
I haven't heard him, like,
talk like himself in so long.
Uh…
[chuckles] My Dad would be like…
Dad would say, "He was a fighter.
He never gave up. He was so strong."
[melancholic music playing]
He would just hit the, like, positives.
I think my dad was extremely proud
of how hard Matthew worked to get well
and backed him up 100%
in anything he wanted to do to get well.
And we were all so grateful
for Matthew for doing that,
for never giving up, for always trying.
[Kevin] You all know him,
you all adore him,
and I am thrilled beyond belief
that he's here.
I have Matthew here. I don't need to…
[Kevin laughing]
-[Matthew] What are you looking at, buddy?
-Just staring.
[Kevin and crew members laughing]
[Matthew chuckles]
I love all the comedic decisions you make.
-You'll have to come back at some point.
-I love sitting here talking to you.
[melancholic music playing]
It's still very difficult to believe
that Matthew is not with us.
Um…
It still doesn't seem real.
Things hit me like from time to time.
A lot of moments
that I hadn't thought of in a long time.
And they'll, like, make me laugh.
-[Matthew] Too silly.
-[woman] Let's educate ourselves.
-Stop it.
-[Roger] You try and stop him.
-Do you wanna hear it?
-[woman] Yes.
Okay. You don't have to talk me into it.
[David] I miss those early times
because it seemed like
even though we probably did,
didn't have any problems, you know?
We're just doing whatever.
There wasn't really
the stress and anxiety of life back then.
Just really having the time of our lives.
We're all a little bit,
maybe a little bit better now,
but still there's a lot of hurt, and…
And, uh…
[voice breaking] At least he…
[crying]
At least he was around.
Yeah.
Yeah.
[suppresses a sob]
[interviewer] How do you think
he would want this film to end?
[clicks tongue]
Well, Matthew would definitely want
everyone to talk about how great he was
and how funny he is.
And how we miss him.
[clicks tongue]
Um…
Yeah, um…
Hopefully, you know…
[inhales deeply]
…he'll know that's happening somehow.
How does Matthew's story end? I mean, um…
I still find a lot of solace
in the fact that he was… he was happy.
He said he was happy. He felt at peace.
The last, um, Instagram post he put up
was a picture of him in the hot tub,
looking out over the ocean,
saying that he was
in his favorite place in the world.
And that's exactly where he died
a few weeks later.
[inhales deeply]
And, uh…
I wonder if it's that, you know, like…
[chuckles]
…panning out over the ocean…
[birds squawking]
…and playing Matthew's favorite song,
"Rainbow Connection."
The instrumentals
and Kermit the Frog singing
are playful and sweet,
while also having
a little bit of a melancholic feel.
Someday we'll find it ♪
A rainbow connection ♪
The lovers, the dreamers, and me… ♪
And, like, one day we'll find it.
And maybe… maybe we find it
not on this plane
or not in this kind of reality.
Maybe some of us have to find it
in a different one.
[inhales and exhales deeply]
-[interviewer] He feels very present.
-Yeah.
[chuckles and sniffles]
Everybody say, "Hi, Matty."
[chuckling]
Hi, Matty.
[melancholic music playing]
[rhythmic hissing]
[Mia] In 2018,
I was called to the hospital
because of a serious medical emergency
Matthew was going through.
I… I went into the ICU where Matthew
had been brought by the ambulance.
This is the exact same ICU
that I had just checked out of
after giving birth
about six weeks earlier.
I mean, I come in,
I am covered in milk and spit-up
and, like, you know, so postpartum,
and I'm just staring at him in the bed.
And it was the first time I had seen him
where I went like, "Oh, I don't…"
"We're… This is… this is it."
Like, "He's… he's… he's not waking up."
[tense music playing]
And, um, the doctors came in and explained
that his colon had ruptured…
[heart beating faintly]
…in several places,
causing, um, intense sepsis
throughout his entire body.
We have absolutely no idea
if he's gonna get through this.
[tense music continues]
At that point in the night,
a decision was made
to transfer him over to UCLA.
[door slamming shut]
And when they wheeled him
out of the ICU room, uh,
something was left on the ground
underneath his bed,
and it was a Batman action figure.
-[Mia crying]
-[monitor beeping]
[siren wailing]
[car engine revving]
[engine roaring]
[monitor beeping]
[Mia groans sadly]
He was absolutely obsessed with Batman
from a very young age.
[dramatic music playing]
Batman was just this thing
that kind of followed Matty
through his whole life.
He had this amazing collection
of Batman paraphernalia.
[audience applauding]
[Kimmel] This is how you're spending
that Friends money, on Batman.
[Matthew] Yeah. But I want to point out,
it's not dorky.
-[Kimmel] It's not?
-[Matthew] No.
[audience cheering and applauding]
[Mia] Of course,
Michael Keaton's is his favorite.
And Matty playing Michael Keaton on SNL
is maybe one of my favorite clips of him.
-[buzzer beeps]
-[man] Mr. Keaton.
-[in a raspy voice] I'm Batman.
-[audience laughing]
[Mia] But I think
it actually resonated on a deeper level
in terms of the backstory piece of it,
of having a troubled childhood
and coming out of that to become this hero
and using wealth for good.
-Maybe it's time for me to just tell you…
-[Kimmel laughing]
-And don't tell anybody else.
-Okay.
-I'm Batman.
-[Kimmel] You're Batman.
[music swells]
[music fades]
[car approaching]
[faint traffic hum]
[birds chirping]
[Mia] While Matthew was in a coma,
I was there with him every single day.
I would just sit in the ICU room
staring at him.
I wasn't the only one
who was there every single day.
My parents came.
All of his other siblings were there.
His mom and his stepdad were there.
I got to know his other siblings
better than I ever have before,
which was really touching.
[monitor beeping]
There were multiple surgeries done on him,
trying to repair his colon.
[low bass hum]
At one point, the decision was made
to put him on an ECMO machine,
which is basically like an iron lung.
It was taking
all of the blood out of his body,
cleaning it in a big machine,
and then sticking it back into his body.
[monitor beeping]
One can only be on ECMO
for a certain period of time
before the body
just starts to sort of deteriorate.
His, like, fingertips were turning black,
and there was a possibility
that he would lose his fingers
if we keep him on too long.
But when do you pull him off?
[Roger] Every day,
we would get reports from his sister
that was like,
"Please, just pull out of this,"
because every day was touch and go.
A lot of people talking about
how maybe, uh, this is…
Like, we're not gonna see Matthew again.
Um, he had appointed me power of attorney
at some point.
And, um, you know,
in some ways, I was really honored
to get to be the person to make
these sort of choices for my brother.
But I also felt
this really intense anxiety and pressure,
and I'm away from my baby,
and I'm postpartum and hormonal
and really just sort of…
barely functioning.
[melancholic music playing]
And then the doctors realized
that he was going into drug withdrawal.
[tense music playing]
Opiates can slow down
your digestive tract dramatically,
and, um, that's what caused the rupture.
[monitor beeping]
And it was like a slap in the face,
like, "Oh, right. Of course."
"Of course this had to do with that."
[exhales deeply]
There's so much grief family members
and friends have to sit with
when their loved ones are struggling
with substance abuse.
And…
There are many layers and aspects
to grief, and one of them is denial.
And I would fall
into that denial place often.
Um…
So it's a mixture of kind of feeling…
[chuckles ruefully]
…a little mad at myself
for forgetting that reality,
even for a few minutes.
[sniffles]
I was certainly angry at him.
"You did this to yourself, man."
"Like, I just had a baby.
You're supposed to be an uncle right now."
[breath trembling]
Like…
Yeah, it's really, really, really hard.
We've had a lot of near misses.
There's been overdoses.
There's been car accidents.
There's been all sorts of stuff.
[ominous music playing]
But this was the only time
that there were a lot of people going,
"I don't…"
"We have no idea
if he's coming out of this thing."
[music continues]
[birds chirping]
About two weeks in, he did start
to show signs that he was waking up.
It would be an eye blink
or a squeeze on the hand.
One of the mornings, I walked in,
and he goes, "Hey, sister."
[tearfully] And that was obviously
a really big deal.
I hadn't heard him talk yet.
Uh…
And I said, "Hey, brother."
[laughing]
[sniffles]
"How you doing?"
[laughs and sniffles]
Um, he didn't talk a lot.
I'm gonna get tears on my shirt.
Uh…
[clears throat]
He didn't talk a lot in the beginning.
It took… it took a while for him
to have the strength and the wherewithal.
But he asked me.
He asked me what happened. And, um…
Yeah, I explained the entire thing to him.
And I just remember he was really quiet,
and he just kind of quietly
closed his eyes
and, uh…
and just started crying.
[sniffles]
[breath trembling]
[melancholic music playing]
Our job isn't
to try to make the feeling go away.
Our job is to sit with the person
and allow them…
allow them to have the feeling…
[sniffles]
…but not have to do it by themselves.
[sniffles, clicks tongue]]
-[chuckling]
-[baby coos]
[Mia] He was in the hospital
for a long time.
And, uh, we would bring our daughter,
and she would sit on my dad's lap
and play with him and make Matthew smile.
I remember I went to go, uh, visit him
at the UCLA, uh, hospital,
um, hung out with him for a little bit.
His dad was there. His dad apparently
was there every day, which was very sweet.
And Matthew was just, you know,
"I just dodged another bullet."
Of course, there was jokes about that.
It's all like, you know,
real gallows humor and stuff like that.
'Cause that's really a lot of…
the only way, at least for me,
you can get through certain things.
And I… I think for him too.
But he was legitimately scared.
Like, when he found out
that he was in a coma.
Yeah, that's scary.
I never wanted to die.
But I did so many drugs at certain times
that I knew that it could kill me.
I was given a 2% chance
to survive the night.
They didn't tell me that, obviously,
because I wasn't really there,
but they told my family.
They put you on an ECMO machine
when it's a Hail Mary,
and five people were on ECMO that night,
and the other four died,
and I somehow made it.
Well, um, God is… is a fan.
[audience laughing and applauding]
When he got out of the coma,
and he was out of danger,
we all had this really hopeful,
like, joyous kind of feeling.
Like, "He made it. Yes!"
You know, "He made it,
and it's going to be good from now on."
There was a part of me
that was cautiously optimistic
about what would be happening for him
in his future.
I kind of was thinking,
"Is this his rock bottom?"
If that was the thing he was needing,
that maybe this was that wake-up call.
[pensive music playing]
Matthew ended up having been
in the hospital for three months.
Even when he went home,
he was still in really, really bad shape.
He had a completely open wound in his gut
that wasn't fully and completely healed.
He had a colostomy bag.
Like he couldn't…
He… he… he aged 20 years in three months.
He could barely walk.
Um, so 24-7 nurses, sober companions,
just constantly surrounded
by people caring for him.
And, you know, he went through…
He had a few really lovely assistants
throughout the years.
Um, some hung around longer than others.
Um…
I'm not gonna remember what year it was
that Kenny started working for him.
[pensive music continues]
Kenny was Matthew's manager's assistant
for 30 years.
And so I met Kenny when I was a child.
Kenny was always kind of chatting
and hanging out and spending time with us
and getting to know us and, um…
We all really liked him.
And we all really, really trusted him.
And, uh…
when he started working for Matthew
after the surgeries to repair his colon,
we were all really happy about it.
We thought it was a really good fit.
Um…
[groans softly]
[pensive music continues]
[exhales softly]
Matthew really, really trusted him.
I mean, they were together
every single day.
And then around that same time,
Matthew started doing
a lot of his own internal processing
around the years that had led up to
what had happened to him.
He was really going back
over his relationships
with the women in his life.
[Matthew] As far as marriage
and having kids go,
you know, I think that's definitely, uh,
down the road for me.
I think I have to go on a second date
in order to, you know, get that rolling,
get that started.
I would consider
several of his relationships
serious girlfriends for sure.
And whether they would last a year,
two years,
whatever it may be…
Uh…
[groans]
I don't know how to say it,
but I think it would…
[hesitates]
He would move on quickly
and then regret moving on.
"I loved her so much."
"Why did I do that?
I made a terrible mistake."
"Don't mention her name."
I remember one time he said to me,
which really resonated, he said,
um, because I was complaining,
something about my kids.
And he was like, "Roger, I would give
everything I have to have what you have."
[music swells]
[Mia] He went through this period
where he was having some feelings
about maybe the ones that got away,
or where he was mentally and emotionally
when he was with them,
and kind of wishing he could go back.
[birds chirping]
[phone ringing]
[woman] In 2020, Matthew called me,
and he said,
"I had a near-death experience,
and I thought of you."
"And I want to be able to talk to you
about this stuff."
[tense music playing]
My name is Rome,
and Matthew was a former boyfriend
and turned into one of my best friends
in the world.
[mellow music playing]
I was born in Iran and came here as a kid.
It was tough
to be in one culture inside the house
and then go out in the world
and experience a different culture
and feel very different.
So, you know, I found relief in alcohol.
I found relief in drugs,
and at a pretty young age,
I… I went into recovery,
and, um, I met many wonderful people.
[tense music playing]
I met Matthew in 2009
at a recovery meeting.
[Matthew] My name is Matthew,
and I'm an alcoholic.
And I remember walking in
and recognizing him right away
because it's Matthew Perry,
and he's not just famous,
but he's worldwide famous.
And I don't know how to describe it,
but I could sense that he had noticed me.
I went home, and I got a friend request
from him on Facebook.
[notification ping]
And I accepted.
And we kind of became friendly after that.
And two years later, we started dating.
I think what we had in common
was he felt comfortable
in very, you know, real-life situations,
more than going to a party
and making small talk with people.
He took me to a hockey game.
We would go
to doctor's appointments together.
It was like we were trying to,
you know, take care of our bodies
and be better and support each other.
One day he's like,
"Oh, your neck is hurting?"
"I'm going to take you
to the chiropractor."
And I was like,
"This is the most romantic thing ever."
The chiropractor cracks my neck,
and it was like my whole world opened up.
And Matthew was smiling this warm,
loving smile, like, "Yeah, it's okay."
That day I took a picture of him,
and he said,
"Rome, this is my favorite picture
anyone's ever taken of me."
And that was the day
that I fell in love with him.
[pensive music playing]
We were together
in a romantic relationship
for about two and a half years,
but he would disappear
for periods of time, you know?
And I just thought to myself at the time,
"Well, I just have to be patient
with this person."
Intimacy was his greatest wish
and biggest fear.
And so it's like, "Okay, uh, stay away,
but please come here and don't leave."
[phone ringing]
One day he called me and he said,
"I've been seeing someone on and off
this entire year."
Um, "Her name is Laura,
and I want you to know."
[tense music playing]
In that moment,
everything that I thought I knew
was no longer true.
It was a fracture of reality.
I started crying, and it was…
It took me months
to feel even a little bit normal.
And then one day
I get a friend request from Laura,
and I was like, "What is this?"
Turns out Matthew and Laura
had also broken up,
and she said,
"Do you want to go to dinner and talk?"
[music stops abruptly]
Like, "Yes, absolutely."
[music continues]
I really liked her immediately.
I was like, "Oh, I thought I was special.
She's special too. She's awesome."
And we became friends.
And I saw
how she always wanted the best for him,
and I saw
how much quicker she was to forgive.
It took me longer.
[mellow music playing]
Matthew and I,
we didn't speak for six years,
but he called me after his colon ruptured,
and he shared that he learned a lot
about appreciating things
while they're here
and wanting to connect
with the people in your life
that are important.
And we became friends again.
[David] His good friends out here
were mostly Laura and Rome and myself.
Sadly, Roger moved to Michigan,
but Matthew, he didn't go out
as much as he used to.
Because his health was so bad,
he hadn't really been out in public
since 2018.
But in 2021,
he decided to participate
in the Friends reunion.
I think he was very nervous
about coming kind of back out.
I think he wanted to be like,
"I'm here. I'm good. Everything's fine."
Um, which was only sort of like half true
at that point.
He was still very much on the mend.
I do remember, uh,
around the time of the Friends reunion,
Matthew being, uh, focused on being sober,
struggling with sobriety,
knowing the import of this.
Um…
Long-awaited, right? A lot of pressure.
[reporter 1] The celebration
of the show's 25th anniversary.
[reporter 2] The cast will sit down
together in an unscripted special.
[reporter 3] Could you be
any more excited?
[crew member] Quiet on the set, please.
[pensive music playing]
[Mary] For the reunion,
they pulled the sets out of storage,
and they filmed in the studio.
I don't think that they had
publicly reunited the whole entire cast
since the show was over.
-[David] Wow.
-[Lisa laughing]
[Mary] And it was very emotional.
But Matthew Perry
was sort of like the wild card.
[melancholic music playing]
[Mia] You know, the energy and life force
in him was really diminished
after going through what he went through.
[Matthew] Hello.
[Matt LeBlanc blowing kisses]
-How are you, bud?
-Good.
[Mary] He was frail physically.
He was very frail
emotionally and psychologically.
But he spoke very authentically
about his deep insecurity
and about the fear that he felt
almost every time he had to tell a joke
that the joke wouldn't land.
I would sometime say a line,
and they wouldn't laugh,
and I would sweat.
I felt like I was gonna die
if they didn't laugh.
In the reunion, I think Matthew
behaviorally… announced
that he had been on his own road.
I think he knew
he couldn't get to the place
that everybody would want him maybe to be
or that he would want to be.
I think he was really aware of that.
He hadn't been on camera in a while.
And you could see him struggling in it.
It's tough to watch
because he's just not himself.
[interviewer] What do you remember
about Matthew's, um, experience of that?
[inhales and exhales deeply]
I don't really wanna talk about that
because, yeah, it just…
Yeah, it really kind of speaks for itself.
[dry chuckle]
[pensive music playing]
And afterwards, it was hard to see
the comments online about it.
[notification beep]
[notification beep]
[notification beep]
It was predictable, but… but difficult.
I mean, after it aired,
I think he felt… he felt relieved.
And, um, after he filmed it,
I know he felt really tired.
Like he was kind of at this place of,
"How am I going to keep going?"
I know he was really scared. I know
he was really fighting for his life.
I know that a lot of parts of him
did not think it was possible
for him to live a sober life.
I don't think I gave up hope.
But…
I started, unfortunately, kind of thinking
of his disease as a terminal illness.
[clicks tongue]
He FaceTimed me unexpectedly one night,
and he was, uh, missing some teeth.
And he was facing having to have
all of his teeth repaired,
and that he knew that that was going
to put him back on opiates for pain.
And he was, um…
he was deathly afraid of, um,
that spiral again.
I think Matthew suffered immensely
from depression.
And I think that he really tried
to do everything he could
to feel okay in his own skin
and was desperate for a solution.
[melancholic music playing]
Later, I saw Matty.
He had detoxed
from all the pain medication
and was starting to get his energy back.
And he was going to a ketamine clinic
as needed.
[Mia] At the time,
studies were starting to show up
that ketamine could be really beneficial
in the treatment of depression
and substance use disorder.
And a lot of the research was promising
and pretty exciting.
So he started using it
in clinical settings.
And he was like,
"This is it. This is helping me."
[low bass hum]
He shared that he felt like he had
a spiritual experience in the ketamine.
[resonant drop]
That he had seen
that we had multiple lives…
[car engine roaring]
…that he felt like
he saw God in the ketamine.
[projector whirring]
I think that's what was drawing him
towards it.
[music intensifies]
[music fades]
[West] Afterwards,
he felt relieved from his darkness.
[birds chirping]
It gave him a lot of freedom and energy.
And… [inhales deeply]
…I just heard a lot of hope in his voice,
you know?
[Mia] As a therapist,
I was always skeptical
about the idea of using…
a substance to treat
a substance use disorder.
But, um,
he'd go get his ketamine injection,
and he seemed the best he'd ever been.
[bubbles popping]
He's present. He's showing up.
He seems happy.
-[tape ripping]
-What?
[shouts] What?
Oh my!
We're hanging out. His nieces love him.
-[man] Look at that thing.
-It's for you.
[laughter]
-[woman] She is looking.
-[indistinct chatter]
[woman] Let's taste him.
[Mia] You know,
and he's a part of the family again.
-Oh, we'll have fun with this.
-[woman] It's like half of a tennis court.
You too.
[Mia] And then right around that time…
[phone ringing]
…he called me up one day and asked me,
"Do you think it's okay
if I were to write a memoir?"
[bright music playing]
And I was insanely torn.
The protective parts of myself,
of our father, of my mom,
of everybody in our lives…
[rapid clicks]
…was like, "Absolutely not. Are you…? No."
And then this other kind of wiser voice
came up and was like…
[inhales and exhales deeply]
…"You gotta let him do
what he's gonna do."
So that's what I told him.
[chuckling]
-[keypad clicking]
-[Matthew] It all flew out of me.
Like it all just kind of dropped
onto the page.
[Rome] He was just always creating.
Despite, you know,
how he may feel on a certain day
or what was going on,
he was always creating.
[Matthew] The most challenging things
to write
-were when things got really dark.
-[keyboard clacking]
[Kevin] He would mention, um,
"I'm working on this book.
It's gonna help a lot of people."
"And I'm gonna tell everything."
[soft piano music plays]
During days, weeks, months of clarity,
he was a single-minded…
missile attacking this effort.
And I remember reading, uh, it.
He gave me like a little advance thing.
And I was like,
"Wow, you're being, uh…
being real honest in this thing."
[tense music playing]
[Mary] In 2022,
Matthew Perry published his memoir.
The book was highly anticipated.
I've read a lot of celebrity memoirs
in which drug addiction or alcoholism
played a part
and recovery played a part.
I don't think I've ever read a… a memoir
that was quite as raw.
"Hi, my name is Matthew."
"Although you may know me
by another name."
"My friends call me Matty."
"And I should be dead."
It was revelatory about the toll
that years of abusing opioids and alcohol
will take on the tissues
of the human body.
"What I needed was two front teeth
and a colostomy bag that didn't break."
"When I say
I woke up covered in my own shit,
I'm talking 50, 60 times."
[poignant music playing]
For him to be
so brutally honest about himself,
his insecurities,
his fears,
he laid it all out.
I was impressed by how much he was sharing
and the bravery and the vulnerability
it took to do that.
And then he went on a huge press tour.
I would go to open houses
and go to the bathrooms
in the… in the open house
and see what pills they had in there
and steal them.
And I think they thought,
"Oh, there's no way
that Chandler came in and stole from us."
It felt like he was trying as hard
as he could to be as authentic as possible
with this giant spotlight on him.
Six thousand AA meetings.
Therapy, thirty years.
-Fifteen rehabs…
-Yeah.
…maybe at least.
Half of your life in treatment
or in sober living houses.
Yeah, I mean, detox is hell.
You know? There is a hell, I know it.
I can… It has tangible features.
I can describe it.
And I would make the decision
to have, like,
five, six hours of being high
and knowing
that six days of that was coming.
And I would make that decision
over and over and over again.
I think he had finally found
a purpose in life through like real hell.
-[cheering and applause]
-[Whoopi] Please welcome Matthew Perry.
[Matthew] Number one bestseller.
-Number one book around the world.
-[audience cheering]
[Mia] His book was
such an instant success.
[talk show host] Congratulations,
I heard you broke Amazon.
They couldn't handle it.
[fan] Matthew!
He was just really excited about that
and really proud of that.
[fans clamoring]
[David] He loved that the book
was a huge success.
He, uh, would not let me, uh, forget that.
"This book is a real big success."
I was like, "I know. Yeah, I know."
He's like, "But like really big."
"Like, off the charts,
like most sold of a certain thing."
I was like, "Yeah, we get it."
He was the happiest
we'd really ever seen him.
[cheering and applause]
-Yeah.
-Thanks for being here.
[cheering and applause continues]
I missed… I missed you guys.
I missed all of you.
[audience cheering]
-Very nice.
-Isn't it?
-Yeah.
-It's nice. It's very pleasant.
I think the memoir, in a lot of ways,
was accomplishing his life's work.
[poignant music plays]
He had been trying to scale a mountain
for his entire life,
and he was looking out
over this beautiful view
of all of the hard work
and all of the roughness
and everything that he had been through,
and he'd actually made it
to the top of that mountain.
The real thing for me,
and the troubles that I've had,
is that reality is an acquired taste.
-That's what I believe.
-[Bill laughs]
That's a great line.
-[Matthew] And…
-[audience laughing and applauding]
I have had a great deal of time,
a great deal of problems acquiring it.
[Bill] Right.
And, uh, it wasn't until I became…
I became really safe,
I felt really safe in my sobriety
and really strong in my sobriety.
And to tell you the truth,
I am resilient, and I am strong.
[audience applauding and whistling]
[Kevin] I'd spent too much time with him
when he was winning the battle.
So when he says,
"I'm actually in a great place,"
you don't just want to believe it,
you need to believe it.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Roger] Um…
He threw a little par…
a little dinner party for me at his house
because I was visiting…
[inhales deeply]
…and, uh, I was staying there with him.
I was, at that time, living in, uh, out…
just outside of Detroit.
I had a nice visit.
A lot of great friends came,
and we had a lot of fun.
And then the next day, he woke up late,
and I was kind of getting ready to leave,
to go to the airport.
And he was like,
"No, no, I'm sorry I slept in."
"Stay a couple more days."
"Stay a couple more days,
and, you know, I'll take care of it."
"Whatever, you know,
I'll change your flight."
"And, you know, if you're missing money
from work or whatever, I'll cover that."
"Just stay a couple more days."
I was like, "No, man, I gotta go."
"You know, I'm supposed to be there
for my kid's show."
[plane engines roaring]
[music intensifies]
[music stops abruptly]
I just wish now, in hindsight,
I would have…
[breathes deeply]
[voice breaks] …that I would have stayed.
[gulps, stifles a sob]
[haunting music playing]
[Mia] I was at a conference in Denver.
And since the conference was in downtown,
my husband, David,
was going to come down to Denver,
and we were going to go out to dinner
and have like a little date night.
I told David
I would meet him at the bar in the hotel.
[Roger] It was October 28th,
and it was right before Halloween.
My kids and I are like,
we're going to one of those mazes
where they hide and scare you,
and I'm standing in the line
with my girls,
and we're next.
[Mia] I was just sitting.
There's like a big snowstorm outside,
and I, like, look up through the doors,
and David comes kind of flying in.
And, um…
At first, I just was looking at him like,
"Oh, he looks a little…"
"I wonder how far he had to walk
in the snowstorm from the parking spot."
Um, and he walks
into the very crowded hotel bar
and kind of gestures to me
to, like, come to him.
And I walk up to him,
and he's just staring at me
with this kind of look on his face,
and I said, "What, what? What?"
[phone ringing]
[Roger] Then all of a sudden,
I get a call from David Pressman.
And I wasn't answering because…
I was about to walk into this maze.
But then he called again and again,
and then finally, I told my kids,
"Let me just walk over here a minute
and get this call."
The first thing I said was,
"Is everything okay?"
And he was like, "No, not really."
And then all I said was, "No."
I just… All I kept saying was,
"No, no, no, no," because I knew.
[inhales deeply]
[exhales and stifles a sob]
[voice wavers] I knew
what he was going to say.
And then he put his…
his hands on my arms and said,
"It's your brother. He's gone."
[trembling breath]
[crying] And I said, "What do you mean?"
And he said,
"Matty's gone."
[inhales deeply]
And I just stared at him, and, um…
And I said, "No, he's not."
Didn't cry, didn't have a single reaction.
I just said, "No, he's not."
[wind gusting]
[Roger] I mean, I just heard the news
that my best friend died.
But… [breathes deeply]
My kids are there,
so I had to try to, like…
[gulps]
…gather myself.
I get in the car, and I take my kids
to their grandmother's house.
I just put my head down
and cried for about an hour.
I couldn't stop crying.
You know, there's a quote in his book.
And I don't know
if it was the book or an interview.
And he says something like,
"It's world… It's weird to be in a world
where if I died, it would be shocking
but not surprising."
I don't know if that's the actual quote.
Something like that.
And I felt that.
I really felt that.
Um, it was shocking how it happened.
But there was a really big part of me
that had been…
prepping for this for a while.
[inhales deeply]
I was not entirely surprised at all.
To be quite frank, I was pissed.
I was angry.
Because I was like,
"Come on, man. What?" You know?
[breath trembling] You know? Like…
[exhales deeply]
It's so final.
[angrily] "Why are you gone?" You know?
[melancholic music playing]
"Do you know what a hole you're gonna…?"
[gulps, suppresses a sob]
[crying] Yeah.
[crickets chirping]
[music swells]
[Mia] I pull my phone out.
And I realize at that moment
that my phone had been turned off all day
because I was at a conference.
[sniffles]
And so I turned my phone on,
and immediately…
[mimics buzzing]
…just, like, blowing up.
And the first person
who's calling me is, uh…
Matthew's friend Robin.
[shudders] And, um…
[crying] And I pick up the phone and…
On speaker. I kind of just do that.
And she goes, "Oh, honey! Tell me
it's not true. Tell me it's not true."
"It's not true, right?"
And I said, "I… I don't know. I don't…"
"How do you know?"
[voice wavers] And she goes,
"TMZ already has it."
[sniffling, suppresses a sob]
[cries softly]
[exhales deeply]
[reporter 1] The shocking and tragic death
of actor Matthew Perry.
[reporter 2] The actor was found dead
in a Jacuzzi
where it appears he has drowned.
[reporter 3] Police are awaiting
more information
to try to make sense
of Matthew Perry's sudden death.
[wipers ticking]
[mellow music playing]
I remember my phone started blowing up…
with texts.
And my reaction was, "No."
[clicks tongue, inhales deeply]
[exhales with a heave]
I was at a UCLA football game
with my son and, uh…
Oh wow.
[forced exhale to suppress a sob]
[shuddering sob]
[crying] It's weird.
[voice breaks] And, uh…
[suppresses a sob]
[clicks tongue]
[music fades]
[slaps thigh]
[melancholic music playing]
[reporter] The world is saying goodbye
to a beloved actor
and one of our best friends.
Well, I've been fighting tears
since I got here.
He was my favorite one
because he made me laugh all the time,
so this is not easy.
[chuckles ruefully]
It sucks.
I feel like everyone could turn on the TV
and feel immediately comforted by him.
To have that connection with an audience
is a wonderful, sacred thing.
[female fan] You don't know how much
somebody that you admire
can actually hit you so much.
[Kevin] I think there was
a lot of need for us to talk about it
and celebrate his life.
[in Thai] Shockwaves rock the industry.
Matthew Perry passes away.
[in French] Yesterday,
I shed a little tear.
[in Spanish] It feels like
I have lost a friend.
[in Russian] I just can't calm down.
I'm crying, my nose is all runny,
my eyes are all red.
[in Spanish] When we have a problem,
we need to talk to each other.
He was helping people,
and he was changing their lives.
Every year on his birthday,
I didn't care what was going on.
I would…
I would text him or call him and tell him,
"Thank you for saving my life."
Because it meant something.
[Jeff] We have this sort of
unlikely superhero.
A vulnerable, air-filled cartoon
of a superhero.
He meant so much in so many ways.
[reporter] His fellow actors, in a joint
statement to People Magazine, said,
"We were more than just castmates.
We are a family."
"We're going to take a moment to grieve
and process this unfathomable loss."
[music swells]
[birds chirping]
[deep, shuddering breath]
So, at the funeral,
we arranged for, like, just…
just the family to have it…
[sobs]
…be open casket for a little while
for all of us.
That was… that was when I completely…
completely broke down.
The funeral was very small.
Close friends and family only.
I remember, like,
sitting in the front row with our family
and seeing his mom
and all the other siblings.
[crying] And then
the rest of the Friends cast
all walked in together.
And I hadn't seen them in easily 20 years.
[inhales deeply]
And, um…
Jen Aniston was the first one of them
to come up to me and give me a huge hug.
But they… they all did.
And then all five of them
walked up to the casket holding hands and…
[crying]
…stood around him crying.
And, um…
[tearful chuckle]
…it came time to move him.
Our dad, whose health isn't great,
walked just right behind him.
And we transferred him over to this area
where he was going to be, uh,
put in kind of like
a mausoleum type of thing.
And that was the first time
that I felt Matthew with me.
[sobbing]
And he showed up
right behind my right shoulder
and leaned over my shoulder and goes,
"How fucked-up is this?"
[laughing] And I…
[sniffles]
…started laughing so hard.
And, um… [sniffles]
I was like, "Oh my God."
Like, there he is, making me laugh
at the most horrible moment.
And also incredibly inappropriate
for me to start laughing
while they're putting him
into this thing, um…
[laughing]
[sniffles]
But I just started cracking up.
And I was like,
"Yeah, man, this is pretty fucked-up."
"This is… This is definitely…"
"This is really fucked-up."
But what I remember about
seeing his casket
being put in the mausoleum…
So it's just…
It's pushed into the wall.
Two guys came out of nowhere,
sealed it up,
put two plastic vases of flowers down.
That was it.
And there was, you know, just…
That's how it ends.
[clicks tongue]
Um, and the first thought,
I was just like,
"Matthew inside there
doing the goot face."
[melancholic music playing]
[camera clicks]
[camera clicks]
[camera clicks]
[Kevin] I think
my brain went to solve the mystery.
[splutters]
You know, it…
There were just questions of how.
How did this…?
And the story was so murky.
[reporter 1] Matthew Perry's
cause of death
is now under investigation.
The LA coroner's office
waiting for toxicology reports
to see if there were
any foreign substances
that could have contributed
to the star's death.
We didn't know anything
about how Matthew had died.
[inhales deeply]
The… the story that most of us
were thinking had happened
was that he'd had a heart attack
while sitting in his Jacuzzi.
But we were all waiting
on an autopsy report.
[reporter 2] Los Angeles officials
finally revealing
Friends star Matthew Perry's
cause of death.
[reporter 3] The County Medical
Examiner's office says
the 54-year-old died
from the acute effects of ketamine.
[tense music playing]
That was the first time that I'd found out
that he was doing extra ketamine
on the side.
[keyboard clacking]
I remember just so many different
conflicting feelings coming in.
"Can you die from a ketamine overdose?"
"Is that a thing?
I don't think that's a thing."
To, "What the fuck was he doing
with more ketamine?"
It was just a flood of confusion.
[music fades]
[car approaching]
[car whizzes past]
-[man 1] We're shooting. This should be…
-[man 2] Checking audio. One, two, three.
Audio check, one, two, three. Good? Okay.
[indistinct chatter]
[tense music playing]
Good morning. My name is Martin Estrada.
I'm the United States Attorney
based in Los Angeles.
I do remember the moment
of Matthew Perry's passing.
I heard it like everyone else did,
on the news.
And it was shocking and tragic.
What I later learned is that
it wasn't just tragic, it was criminal.
[sirens wailing]
[indistinct police radio chatter]
[siren wailing]
[Martin] Right after Mr. Perry's death,
LAPD secured the scene,
and they began to collect evidence.
Officers interviewed Kenny Iwamasa,
Mr. Perry's live-in assistant,
and were able to collect the phones
of Mr. Perry and Mr. Iwamasa.
It's sort of like a spider's web.
You start from the middle,
and you build out and out
and gather all the evidence possible
to make sure you're not missing anything.
We were not investigating Matthew Perry
as a suspect of any sort.
It was clear from the outset that,
if anything, he was the victim
of some sort of drug dealing
which caused his death.
So for us,
what was important at that point
was to discover who the people were
who were responsible for that death.
We are here today
with our law enforcement partners
to announce federal criminal charges
related to the death
of the actor Matthew Perry.
[clicks tongue]
That investigation has revealed
a broad underground criminal network
responsible for distributing
large quantities of ketamine
to Mr. Perry and others.
We learned in around September of 2023,
Mr. Perry begins looking
for sources of supply for the ketamine.
There were not one but two medical doctors
involved in supplying these drugs,
these risky, dangerous drugs,
to Mr. Perry.
[camera clicking]
Salvador Plasencia and…
[camera clicking]
…Mark Chavez.
They become essentially
street-level dealers to Mr. Perry,
supplying him with ketamine
at exorbitant rates.
[tense music playing]
We uncovered messages
which showed Plasencia was trying
to maximize profit from Mr. Perry.
At one point saying to Mark Chavez,
"I wonder how much this moron will pay,"
referring to Mr. Perry.
[David] You've got two doctors
texting each other,
"How much will this moron pay?"
You know, it was sad,
but I wasn't really that surprised
that there was people like that.
These defendants took advantage
of Mr. Perry's addiction issues
to enrich themselves.
Dr. Plasencia charged him over $55,000
over a two-week period.
After buying
from Dr. Plasencia and Dr. Chavez,
Mr. Perry went
to a different source of supply.
Erik Fleming was a go-between
for Jasveen Sangha.
She was a prolific distributor
and cultivated this glamorous persona
as this ketamine queen.
And she sold the dosage of ketamine
that ultimately resulted
in the death of Mr. Perry.
We charged five defendants in this matter.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Mia] I'm on the phone with my mother.
"And the last person…"
We're going, "Who could it be?
Who could it be? Who could it be?"
And then both of us have this moment
where we go,
"Oh my God, I hope it's not Kenny."
This network included a live-in assistant.
[tense music playing]
Kenny Iwamasa at times was the conduit
for obtaining ketamine,
at other times was the person
who administered the ketamine
through injections to Mr. Perry.
Kenny's known my brother
for 30 years.
He knows what he's battling.
The level of betrayal we all felt, um…
He should have known better.
He could have quit his job.
He could have come and told
one of the family members.
He could have done
a lot of different things.
He could have made
a lot of different choices.
[sniffles]
I felt really, um,
like I had been duped,
deeply.
[interviewer] Can you tell me
about the indictments
when you heard about those?
So this is the funny part
of the documentary.
This is, like, the real…
this is the real hilarious part
of the documentary.
Um… [chuckles]
I, uh…
[exhales deeply]
You know, all of that was very strange.
Then finding out what actually happened.
Well, first of all, I hope they all get
the justice that they deserve.
But I would say
Matthew was a serious addict,
and he just couldn't shake it.
But with people like that in your orbit,
who are taking advantage
of your addiction and your wealth,
I don't think he stood much of a chance.
[pensive music playing]
[Mia] I wasn't sure if I was gonna go
to any of the hearings.
Like, I didn't understand
how I could possibly withstand
seeing one of these people.
But in the days leading up to it,
I decided to go.
Um…
And I… I did speak, and I shared
as not only Matthew's, uh, sister,
but as a psychotherapist.
And, um, there was a moment
of some kind of catharsis,
release, redemption.
I'm not sure what the word is,
but something came off of my chest
that had been lingering there for…
Well, since he had died.
[melancholic music playing]
[leaves rustling]
[Mia] Our dad has been, uh, ill
for a long time.
And I know my father would
love to be able to participate
in helping to share the story of his son.
[clicks tongue]
Uh, but unfortunately,
he's just not well enough to do that.
And, um… it really sort of fell to me
to be able to talk
about the Perry side of the family.
[interviewer] What do you think
your dad would say about this
if he were sitting here?
[exhales deeply]
Yeah.
What would he say?
I haven't heard him, like,
talk like himself in so long.
Uh…
[chuckles] My Dad would be like…
Dad would say, "He was a fighter.
He never gave up. He was so strong."
[melancholic music playing]
He would just hit the, like, positives.
I think my dad was extremely proud
of how hard Matthew worked to get well
and backed him up 100%
in anything he wanted to do to get well.
And we were all so grateful
for Matthew for doing that,
for never giving up, for always trying.
[Kevin] You all know him,
you all adore him,
and I am thrilled beyond belief
that he's here.
I have Matthew here. I don't need to…
[Kevin laughing]
-[Matthew] What are you looking at, buddy?
-Just staring.
[Kevin and crew members laughing]
[Matthew chuckles]
I love all the comedic decisions you make.
-You'll have to come back at some point.
-I love sitting here talking to you.
[melancholic music playing]
It's still very difficult to believe
that Matthew is not with us.
Um…
It still doesn't seem real.
Things hit me like from time to time.
A lot of moments
that I hadn't thought of in a long time.
And they'll, like, make me laugh.
-[Matthew] Too silly.
-[woman] Let's educate ourselves.
-Stop it.
-[Roger] You try and stop him.
-Do you wanna hear it?
-[woman] Yes.
Okay. You don't have to talk me into it.
[David] I miss those early times
because it seemed like
even though we probably did,
didn't have any problems, you know?
We're just doing whatever.
There wasn't really
the stress and anxiety of life back then.
Just really having the time of our lives.
We're all a little bit,
maybe a little bit better now,
but still there's a lot of hurt, and…
And, uh…
[voice breaking] At least he…
[crying]
At least he was around.
Yeah.
Yeah.
[suppresses a sob]
[interviewer] How do you think
he would want this film to end?
[clicks tongue]
Well, Matthew would definitely want
everyone to talk about how great he was
and how funny he is.
And how we miss him.
[clicks tongue]
Um…
Yeah, um…
Hopefully, you know…
[inhales deeply]
…he'll know that's happening somehow.
How does Matthew's story end? I mean, um…
I still find a lot of solace
in the fact that he was… he was happy.
He said he was happy. He felt at peace.
The last, um, Instagram post he put up
was a picture of him in the hot tub,
looking out over the ocean,
saying that he was
in his favorite place in the world.
And that's exactly where he died
a few weeks later.
[inhales deeply]
And, uh…
I wonder if it's that, you know, like…
[chuckles]
…panning out over the ocean…
[birds squawking]
…and playing Matthew's favorite song,
"Rainbow Connection."
The instrumentals
and Kermit the Frog singing
are playful and sweet,
while also having
a little bit of a melancholic feel.
Someday we'll find it ♪
A rainbow connection ♪
The lovers, the dreamers, and me… ♪
And, like, one day we'll find it.
And maybe… maybe we find it
not on this plane
or not in this kind of reality.
Maybe some of us have to find it
in a different one.
[inhales and exhales deeply]
-[interviewer] He feels very present.
-Yeah.
[chuckles and sniffles]
Everybody say, "Hi, Matty."
[chuckling]
Hi, Matty.
[melancholic music playing]