Officials release more details about Matthew Perry’s death, but determining cause will take time

 

Authorities provided new details Monday about the death of “Friends” star Matthew Perry but said it will take time to determine a cause of death.

Perry was found dead Saturday at his Pacific Palisades home. He was 54.

What do we know about his death?

Officials received a medical call from Perry’s home overlooking the Pacific Ocean at around 4 p.m. Saturday reporting that the actor was in a hot tub and not breathing. The identity of the caller has not been revealed.

On Monday, officials said the Los Angeles Fire Department had arrived at 4:07 p.m. and the Los Angeles Police Department at 4:10 p.m.

“An adult male patient was deceased prior to first response arrival,” the LAFD said in a statement. “The patient was found by a bystander who had re-positioned the victim where the head was out of water” in a freestanding hot tub.

“Firefighters pulled the victim out of the jacuzzi and did a quick medical assessment to find he was deceased,” the statement read.

Do officials have a sense of what happened?

No cause of death has been determined. The Los Angeles County coroner’s office has launched an investigation, which will likely take months and include toxicology tests.

The medical examiner has completed an autopsy, but a cause of death was “deferred,” officials said.

Law enforcement sources told The Times that no illicit drugs were found at the home.

LAPD Capt. Scot Williams, who leads the Robbery Homicide Division that is investigating Perry’s death, said Sunday that the “cause of death may not be known for some time, but at this point foul play is not suspected.”

One law enforcement source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing, said prescription medications recovered at the home will be part of the review, which is common practice.

The sources said that while Perry was found in the hot tub, no determination has been made as to whether he drowned.

Source: Los Angeles Times 

Matthew Perry’s Cause of Death “Deferred,” Says Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office

The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s office on Sunday released its first report on Matthew Perry, who died Saturday at age 54.

Perry was discovered unresponsive in a hot tub at his Los Angeles home around 4 p.m. Saturday, law enforcement sources told The Los Angeles Times.

On Sunday, the coroner’s office updated its case online, saying that the cause of death had been “deferred.” That typically means an autopsy has been completed but the examiner needs more time and additional investigation into the death.

“Deferred means that after an autopsy, a cause of death has not been determined and the medical examiner is requesting more investigation into the death, including additional studies,” a spokesperson for the department previously explained, when the coroner deferred the case of death for Lisa Marie Presley, who died in January. “Once the tests/studies come back, the doctor evaluates the case again and makes the cause of death determination.”

A spokesperson told People on Sunday that the results of Perry’s autopsy are pending a toxicology report, which can take several weeks to complete.

The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to the medical examiner’s office for additional information.

Perry, who rose to fame playing Chandler Bing on NBC’s long-running hit sitcom Friends, was open about his decades-long struggles with substance abuse, reflecting on his struggles to get sober in his 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing. While promoting the book, he noted he had been clean for 18 months, but he acknowledged in 2015 that it was not an easy process.

“You can’t have a drug problem for 30 years and then expect to have it solved in 28 days,” he said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in my life and a lot of wonderful accolades, but the best thing about me is that if an alcoholic comes up to me and says, ‘Will you help me stop drinking?’ I will say, ‘Yes. I know how to do that.’”

Perry also worked to help others become sober, turning his former Malibu beach home into a men’s sober living facility named The Perry House.

In addition to Friends, he starred in the feature films The Whole Nine Yards and its sequel; Fools Rush In, Almost Heroes, Three to Tango and Serving Sara; as well as the TV series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Mr. Sunshine and Go On.

Source: The Hollywood reporter