The one where everything was a tragic lie.
As we now know, Matthew Perry wasn't clean in the end. In fact, despite claims to the contrary in his best-selling memoirs, he was probably never clean.
His autopsy report, released last week, was another shock: He had enough ketamine in his body to anesthetize a surgical patient.
Perry sold his addicts a fantasy. It's entirely possible that he had to believe it.
“I wanted to share when I felt confident that I wasn't going back to the dark side of it all,” he told People magazine last year. “I had to wait until I was fairly sober – and free of the active disease of alcoholism and addiction – to write it all down. And the main thing was, I was pretty sure it would help people.”
If anyone else needed help, it was Perry himself.
As Alison Boshoff exclusively reported in the Mail, a source close to Perry revealed the truth: “He lied to everyone about his cleanliness.” He never was. It's very sad. You know, the biggest lie he told was probably directed at himself.
As we now know, Perry didn't come clean in the end. In fact, despite claims to the contrary in his best-selling memoirs, he was probably never clean. His autopsy report, released last week, was another shock: He had enough ketamine in his body to anesthetize a surgical patient.
As Alison Boshoff exclusively reported in the Mail, a source close to Perry revealed the truth: “He lied to everyone about his cleanliness.” He never was. It's very sad. You know, the biggest lie he told was probably directed at himself. (Pictured: Perry's latest Instagram post).
Still, we all believed in him, and that's not just because of his acting skills. We wanted to believe him. Perry's biggest selling point was his refusal to neatly wrap up his story and his gentle vulnerability.
He wrote it and said it again and again: The severity of his addiction meant he would never be safe from himself.
“I have no further sobriety in me,” he wrote. “If I went out, I could never come back… It will kill me.”
In his self-proclaimed quest to help other addicts, he was willing to reveal the indignities he suffered and the ravages on his body: his upper teeth suddenly fell out; the fourteen operations that left him with tears in his eyes; his near-death experience; the operations are still to come.
“I will never be finished,” he wrote. “I'll always have the guts of a man in his nineties… the scars… my stomach looks like a topographical map of China.” And they hurt like hell.
Perry talked about his colostomy bag, his sexual impotence, the $9 million he spent trying to get clean, the 6,000 AA meetings and the 55 Vicodin a day.
He confessed that as a teenager he was so unhappy that he fell to his knees and begged God for glory.
And wow, did he get it – a global superstar that few will ever know. But as the saying goes, more tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.
For all his special gifts, Perry died the sad, lonely and shameful death of a prominent drug addict: Elvis in the toilet, Whitney in the bathtub, Prince in his elevator.
As it turned out, Perry's life after the memoir was a misery. He hid the truth, became evil, and drove away the people closest to him.
He sought solace in women far too young: a 25-year-old former Miss USA, a 22-year-old porn star. He lost his fiancée, Molly Hurwitz, after she caught him sending a message about Raya to a 19-year-old.
In other words, he was uniquely gifted – and a total cliché.
He allowed himself to believe that his wealth and celebrity exempted him from the rules: Hence, as he admitted, the chain-smoking in his hospital bed, crashing his Porsche into someone's living room with no consequences, chartering a private plane to go to rehab to escape and get high.
He had the developmental delay so common among addicts, particularly his obsession with Batman.
He had the superhero's bat wings engraved into the bottom of his pool. He had a black and red car that he called the Batmobile. He called himself “Mattman” and, less than two weeks before his death, posted his pool's red-lit racket signal with the caption: “Sleep well everyone, I have the city tonight.”
Troubling things for a man who is eligible for AARP membership.
As it turned out, Perry's life after the memoir was a misery. He hid the truth, became evil, and drove away the people closest to him. He sought solace in women far too young: a 25-year-old former Miss USA, a 22-year-old porn star. He lost his fiancée, Molly Hurwitz, after she caught him sending a message about Raya to a 19-year-old. (Pictured: Pornstar Kylie Rocket).
But Perry never had to live in the real world, and that bothered him as much as his addiction.
“Angry and mean,” a friend described Perry in the days before his death.
Another source told the New York Post that Perry was struggling with AA meetings in New York City.
'Mister. “Perry wasn’t able to handle the tough love,” the source said. “I feel for him, but in my 25 years of experience, sometimes “helping” someone is really helpful. I think he had many trailblazers who meant well. He was in a golden cage.
In recent days, his ketamine use has been portrayed as purely therapeutic and under medical supervision to treat his “depression and anxiety.”
But read the fine print of the autopsy report and you'll see that Perry's overdose was almost certainly caused by illegal recreational use.
“His last known treatment occurred a week and a half before his death,” the report concludes. “The ketamine in his body at death could not have come from this infusion therapy because the half-life of ketamine is three to four hours or less.”
An important point: When administered correctly, medical ketamine has proven to be extremely successful in treating post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and addiction. Perry's overdose shouldn't change that.
That's why the truth matters here.
Otherwise he was a walking pharmacy. In addition to ketamine, Perry also took testosterone, possibly to counteract the effects of an estrogen-based weight loss drug. buprenorphine to treat opioid addiction; the anti-anxiety drug lorazepam; and clonazepam, a drug used to treat epileptic seizures and panic disorder, was metabolized.
Perry never had to live in the real world, and that bothered him as much as his addiction. “Angry and mean,” is how a friend described Perry in the days before his death.
Investigators said “several” bottles of prescription medication were found in his home, as well as “shells filled with various loose pills,” e-cigarettes and nicotine lollipops.
How dark. How incredibly sad – for him, for his fans, and for addicts everywhere – that the legacy he wanted to leave behind, not as a “friend” but as someone whose triumph over addiction could help others, has been compromised.
He knew it could end like this.
“Secrets kill you,” he told Diane Sawyer last year. “Secrets kill people like me.”