The three-part Netflix documentary The One About Matthew Perry was released in full on Tuesday, October 27, marking the first in-depth documentary about the late Friends star. The series covers his life, career, and the circumstances surrounding his death in October 2023.
Matthew Perry was found unresponsive in the hot tub of his Pacific Palisades home in October 2023. Two months later, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's Office ruled his cause of death as the acute effects of ketamine. The overdose was ruled accidental, as Perry had been receiving prescribed ketamine therapy for anxiety and depression.
Perry's Career and Addiction Struggles
Perry was best known for playing Chandler Bing on Friends from 1994 to 2004, alongside Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, and David Schwimmer. He received an Emmy nomination for his work on the show. He also starred in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Fools Rush In, and 17 Again, and voiced Benny in the video game Fallout: New Vegas.
In an audio interview featured in the documentary, Perry said that when he read the Friends script, he found the role of Chandler to be “something that was very similar to me and had my rhythms. It was about a guy who was sort of trying to distract everybody from how miserable he was all the time by being funny.”
The documentary explains that Perry's dependence on painkillers began after an on-set injury during the making of 1997's Fools Rush In, his first starring role. He injured himself on a jet ski during a lunch break on location at Lake Mead. In an audio clip, he recalled: “I had no idea what was going on. The doctor gave me a pill in a package and said, 'Take this when you're done shooting.' I did and then I felt this incredible euphoria. So why wouldn't I take more.”
Health Crisis and Legal Aftermath
The series also details a 2018 health crisis that left Perry in a coma with a ruptured colon and sepsis, requiring an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machine. Perry said: “I was given a 2% chance to survive the night. … 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.”
Perry's sister, Mia Perry Bowick, appears throughout the documentary. She said: “I've really learned how to hold gratitude and grief simultaneously. That was overall encompassing of how I felt watching the doc.” She also described thinking of his addiction as a “terminal illness” after the 2021 Friends reunion taping.
Perry's assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, injected Perry with ketamine and worked with two doctors to provide the actor with more than $50,000 (£38,000) of the drug in the weeks before his death. Iwamasa pleaded guilty in August 2024 to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine causing death, facing a maximum penalty of 15 years in federal prison. He was later sentenced to 41 months in prison, two years of supervised release, and a $10,000 fine. Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett noted Iwamasa's knowledge of Perry's addiction struggles and his concealment of evidence after Perry's death.
Iwamasa told Perry's family in court: “I'm so sorry to all of you. I'm just so sorry to have done illegal acts that I will forever regret. I will take it to my grave. I hope I'll be a cautionary tale to someone who's in my position to make better choices.” The One About Matthew Perry is available now on Netflix.
