Matthew Perry’s family is reflecting on the actor’s death one year later.
In a series of interviews, Perry’s mother, sister and stepfather Keith Morrison opened up about how they are navigating their grief while honoring the late actor with the Matthew Perry Foundation.
Suzanne Morrison believes her son had a “premonition” of his death as she recalled one of their final conversations.
“He went through a period, interestingly enough, just before he died when he was showing me one of his new houses. He came up to me and he said, ‘I love you so much, and I’m so happy to be with you now,” she told Today’s Savannah Guthrie. “It was almost as though it was a premonition or something. 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.”
Perry died on Oct. 28, 2023. He was found unresponsive in the hot tub of his Los Angeles home. The medical examiner determined he died from the “acute effects of ketamine.”
“There was an inevitability to what was going to happen next to him, and he felt it very strongly,” Suzanne added. “But he said, ‘I’m not frightened anymore.’ And it worried me.”
The family’s full interview will air on the Today show Monday, marking the one-year anniversary of Perry’s death.
Keith Morrison spoke with Hello! Canada as the Matthew Perry Foundation of Canada launches in the country. He called his stepson’s death “incredibly shocking.”
“Anybody who has lost a child will tell you that, even if you are in some way prepared for the possibility, it’s shattering. What we have decided to do is hang on to that determination and try to do something useful,” the NBC Dateline correspondent explained.
Keith said Perry “would like to be remembered for doing something to help people suffering from addiction.” The actor, who was 54 when he died, was candid about his addiction struggles.
The Matthew Perry Foundation of Canada will help recovering addicts after treatment for substance abuse disorders. Perry’s younger sister Caitlin is the executive director.
“The work that I’m doing now is very selfish because 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 told the magazine. “I have this treasure of getting to keep him very, very close to my life all the time, which is wonderful.”
The home where Perry died just sold, the New York Times reported on Wednesday. The 3,500-square-foot house in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of L.A. was bought by a real estate developer and movie producer based in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Leave a Comment