Real reason Matthew Perry kept taking ketamine: Family reveal powerful force behind voracious eight-injections-a-day habit... as they slam his jailed assistant for 'duping' them

Matthew Perry's younger sister has spoken of the 'betrayal' by a close friend who injected the actor with the dose of ketamine that took his life, and how the drug made Perry feel like he was seeing god.

Mia Perry Bowick, speaking publicly about her brother for the first time, says in a new Netflix documentary that Kenny Iwamasa 'should have known better' than to help the Friends star get hold of vast amounts of ketamine.

Bowick says she felt 'duped, deeply' by Iwamasa, who she knew for 30 years and who initially worked as Perry's manager's assistant, before being hired by the star himself after a near fatal opioid overdose in 2018.

Perry's close friend David Pressman says that, with friends like Iwamasa taking advantage of him and his drug addiction, the actor 'didn't stand a chance.'

In the film Bowick also reveals the strong pull that ketamine had on her brother, saying the Friends star 'thought he saw God' while on it and that it made him think people live multiple lives.

Bowick talks about her brother's life and untimely death in The One About Matthew Perry, which is out on Netflix on Tuesday and also reveals the enormous amount of alcohol the star was consuming in a single drink at Hollywood parties.

Iwamasa, 60, was one of five people who were sentenced for obtaining and providing ketamine to Perry, who died in his hot tub in Los Angeles in October 2023, at the age of 54, after an overdose of the drug.

In May this year, Iwamasa was given three years and five months in prison for what a judge called 'reckless' conduct because he was 'privy to his (Perry's) struggle with addiction.'

Iwamasa was the last person to see Perry alive and essentially became his enabler and personal doctor, the court was told.

In the film Bowick is seen breaking down in tears while talking about her sense of anger at somebody she once looked up to.

She says: 'Kenny's known my brother for 30 years. He knows what he's battling.

'The level of betrayal we all felt. He should have known better. He could have quit his job, come and told one of the family members, he could have made a lot of different choices.

'I felt really like I had been duped, deeply.'

Earlier in the documentary Bowick says that, when Iwamasa began working with her brother in 2022, she was excited.

Perry would go on to pay Iwamasa $150,000 a year to be his live-in assistant, a role which would later include injecting the star with ketamine that Iwamasa helped to obtain.

At the time 'we all really liked him and really really trusted him,' Bowick says of Iwamasa.

'When he started working with Matthew we were all really happy and thought it was a good fit.

'Matthew really, really trusted him. They were together every single day.'

Also in the film, David Pressman, one of Perry's close friends, is scathing about what happened next.

He says: 'Matthew was a serious addict and he couldn't shake it but with people like that in your orbit or taking advantage of your addiction and your wealth, I don't think he stood much of a chance.'

Perry began using ketamine around 2021 in a clinical setting and told his family it was helping his long-standing battle with depression – a struggle that put him into rehab more than a dozen times.

According to Bowick, Perry felt like 'this is it, it's helping me.'

As a psychotherapist, Bowick was skeptical about using one substance to help somebody with a history of abusing drink and drugs, but it seemed to be working for her brother.

'He's the best he's ever been,' she says in the documentary, speaking of his mood at the time.

'He's present, he's showing up, he seems happy. We're hanging out, his nieces love him. He's a part of the family again.'

Ketamine didn't just help Perry with his depression, she says – it gave him experiences which had a profound impact upon him.

'He felt like he had a spiritual experience on the ketamine, he'd seen we have multiple lives, he felt like he saw God in the ketamine, that's what was drawing him to it,' Bowick says.

West Huddleston, a drug recovery expert who became friends with Perry, tells the film's director that, after taking ketamine, the actor 'felt relieved from his darkness.'

'It gave him a lot of freedom and energy and I heard a lot of hope in his voice,' he said.

That need would grow into a habit that cost Perry $55,000 for illegally sourced ketamine in the two months leading up to his death.

He was injecting the drug six to eight times a day before his accidental overdose, prosecutors said.

According to Iwasama's plea deal, he was the one administering the drugs – including the final dose on October 28th, 2023, after which he left Perry alone to go and do some errands.

The film also offers fresh insight into some of Perry's excesses, including his wild partying with Bruce Willis while filming the 2000 crime comedy The Whole Nine Yards.

Kevin Pollak, Perry's actor friend who also appeared in the movie, says that Willis would rent out the entire top floor of a hotel for nights of heavy drinking

Pollak recalls in the film: 'I remember Matthew saying: 'You coming to Club Willis tonight?

'Bruce had the entire top floor. Castmates came to Club Willis as did talent from strip clubs.

'I was a fly on the wall. Matthew had a sense of: 'Can you believe this is happening?'

According to Pollack, Willis or Perry would tell the party's bartender: 'I'll take five' whenever they wanted a drink.

Pollack said: 'I remember saying, 'What? What is a five?' That's the amount of alcohol in the drink before you add ice.

'Give me seven.' Seven? Yeah, so I couldn't keep up

'We were partying pretty hard when we weren't working,' Pollack adds, 'but the word 'addiction' was not talked about at that point.'

 The One About Matthew Perry is available to stream on Netflix from October 27