Exclusive:
Matthew Perry’s ex-partner and former assistant Kayti Edwards has opened up in a wide-ranging interview as she also called on his network of dodgy doctors to be smashed by cops
Matthew Perry: Ex-girlfriend Kayti Edwards reacts to recent arrests
Matthew Perry’s ex-girlfriend and former assistant has opened up about the star’s drug addiction – and how he was not the only celebrity getting drugs illegally from doctors.
In an exclusive interview with The Mirror US, Kayti Edwards says it’s an open secret in Hollywood -and she has witnessed it first hand.
“I remember my friend and I going to another celebrity’s house and they had a whole medical room in his house, with IVs and vials and meds. Matthew certainly wasn’t the only one,” The step-granddaughter of British actress Julie Andrews disclosed. “I just hope that all this proves a big wake-up call for the industry as the doctors think they are invincible.”
Kayti says she stopped working with the star in 2011 as she couldn’t watch him die. She explained: “Matthew paid me very well as his assistant but there came a point for me that he got so bad that I had no choice but to walk away from that salary. But I knew that I could not watch him die. I would never, ever be able to live with myself.”
She added: “There were so many sleepless nights that I would go home and I would wake up at four in the morning texting him, ‘Are you alive? Are you alive? Just answer. Send me an emoji. Send me something that you are there.’ I couldn’t sleep at night knowing what he was doing. And I think part of me stayed as long as I did, because if I didn’t stay, he would have been alone, and he would have just kept going.”
Eventually, she managed to persuade him to go to rehab in January 2011. She explained: “I said, ‘I’m not doing this anymore, Matthew, I am sorry you were going to hate me, but we are getting you in a rehab.'”
Kayti dated the Friends star in 2006 before going to work as his assistant in 2011. They remained friends right up until his death aged 54, in October 2023.
It comes as Kayti says the actor had a massive network of dodgy doctors and nurses illegally supplying him drugs for more than a decade.
She adds: “There’s a whole network of people beyond those facing criminal charges who the police need to investigate. Detectives need only delve back into his medical history.
“There are so many more doctors who have been on his books over the years who will be terrified right now. Whenever he was in active addiction, he knew instantly where to turn. It’s a scandal.”
She was speaking out after Perry’s live-in assistant, two doctors and a woman dubbed “the ketamine queen” were among five people charged following an investigation into the actor’s death.
But Kayti, who is the step-granddaughter of British actress Julie Andrews, said that his links to doctors go back years, although his choice of drugs had changed.
“Ketamine was his new thing, but it all started with unscrupulous doctors oversubscribing prescription pills like Vicodin,” she says “When the charges dropped, I knew they would be doctors…..because that was what he always did.
“I was not surprised. His addictive brain would think, ‘well, it was prescribed from a doctor so I can take it.’ In his head, it wasn’t like he was out on the street, scoring drugs.”
She also says there are serious questions as to why no drugs or paraphernalia were found at the scene.
“If you have given him a big shot, there would be a needle and evidence of ketamine in the house. Where did it all go? Why did the assistant shoot him up with all those drugs and leave,” she says. “I always stayed with Matthew if he was taking drugs as I didn’t want him to OD , or anything to happen. I could call 911. But why wasn’t his assistant there.”
Investigators told how doctor Salvador Plasencia conspired with fellow medic Mark Chavez to supply the actor with large amounts of ketamine, writing in a message: “I wonder how much this moron will pay” and “let’s find out”.
His assistant Kenneth Iwamasa has already pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute ketamine causing death – admitting to “repeatedly injecting Perry with ketamine without medical training”.
Iwamasa, 59, pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute ketamine causing death, while Chavez, 54, has plead guilty to conspiracy to distribute ketamine
Plasencia, who is charged with conspiracy to distribute ketamine, seven counts of distribution of ketamine and two charges related to allegations he falsified documents during the investigation into Perry’s death, pleaded not guilty.
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