Matthew Perry’s mother reminisced a heartfelt moment she experienced with her son shortly before he passed away a year ago, which she now thinks was a “premonition” about his impending death.
In a preview clip from her first interview about her son’s death, set to air in full next week, Suzanne Morrison told the “Today” show about the interaction.
“Just before he died, he was showing me one of his new houses,” Morrison said. “He came up to me and said, ‘I love you so much and I’m so happy to be with you now.’”
“It was almost as though it was a premonition or something,” she added. “I didn’t think about it at the time but I thought: How long has it been since we’ve had a conversation like that? It’s been years.”
“I think there was something … there was an inevitability to what was gonna happen next to him, and he felt it very strongly,” she said in the interview.
“But he said, ‘I’m not frightened any more’—and it worried me.”
Perry gained international fame with is role as Chandler Bing on the NBC hit series “Friends,” which ran from 1994 to 2004. Despite his success, he struggled with addiction all through his life; In his memoirs, he said he became addicted to alcohol at the age of 14, and later to opioid painkillers following a jet ski accident.
Fate struck on Oct. 28, 2023, when the beloved actor was found unresponsive in a hot tub at his home in Los Angeles—he would never regain consciousness. The coroner’s report determined the 54-year-old died from a ketamine overdose.
Five people have since been charged in connection to his death. Three of them, Mark Chavez, one of his doctors; Erik Fleming, a personal friend; and Kenneth Iwamasa, Perry’s assistant, pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute ketamine.
Perry was outspoken about his personal struggles with addiction, and even lobbied Congress on behalf of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals.
To honor his memory, Perry’s stepfather and daughter Keith and Caitlin Morrison set up The Matthew Perry Foundation of Canada, a non-profit dedicated to helping people who’ve overcome addiction to settle into a stable life and stay clean.
In a Wednesday exclusive interview with Hello! Canada, Caitlin Morrison spoke for the first time publicly about her stepbrother.
“He had this ability to fill up a room with light,” she said. “When people were in a room with [Matthew], there was this magnetic energy. Everybody just had a smile on their face, and they clung to everything that he said.”
Caitlin also commented on her role of executive director for the foundation.
“It kind of feels like I’m sitting right next to Matthew, working with him every day on something that was important to him,” she said.