LOS ANGELES (AP) — After a lifetime of sobriety struggles, Matthew Perry spent the last days of his life desperately seeking the ketamine that would ultimately cause his death.
The 2 1/2-year investigation and prosecution that followed came to a close Wednesday with the sentencing of his personal assistant Kenneth Iwamasa, who bought him the drugs, gave him injections, and found him dead in the hot tub of the house they shared on Oct. 23, 2023. The 54-year-old “Friends” star had told Iwamasa to shoot him up “with a big one.”
Here’s a chronological look at the end of Perry’s life, drawn from federal court documents, a medical examiner’s investigation and law enforcement reports.
The final month
Sometime in September of 2023 — Perry asks Iwamasa to help him get illegal ketamine. Working with his regular doctor, Perry had been receiving legal ketamine treatments for depression — an increasingly common off-label use of the surgical anesthetic. But he wanted more. Perry’s family members would later say they had known Iwamasa for decades, and trusted him to help keep the actor sober…