Bill Maher took aim at the doctors linked to Matthew Perry’s death on Friday night’s episode of Real Time With Bill Maher.
“Doctors killed Matthew Perry,” the host said during the “New Rules” segment of his talk show. “... Matthew Perry asked his doctor, ‘Is ketamine right for me?’ And his licensed and trained legitimate doctor texted another doctor and wrote, ‘I wonder how much this moron will pay… Let’s find out.’”
Hours before Maher’s show, one of the two physicians charged in the Friends star’s October 2023 death pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute the surgical anesthetic ketamine. Dr. Mark Chavez also agreed to surrender his medical license. The other medical practitioner, Dr. Salvador Plasencia, maintains his innocence and is expected to appear in court on Sept. 4.
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The talk show host, who acknowledged that he and Perry “weren’t super close,” said the late actor was “enough of a friend, and enough of a good guy” that Maher got angry after reading about “all of the enablers.”
“Matthew’s last rehab was at a pricey clinic in Switzerland, where, instead of weaning him off the drugs he was on, which is how we naively assume rehab works, they simply gave him a different drug,” Maher added. “Which accomplished the goal, if the goal was getting Matthew Perry addicted to a new drug.”
While addressing the actor’s untimely death, the comedian also condemned the “medical industrial complex,” highlighting the popularization of ketamine clinics in the U.S.
“It’s what always happens with Western medicine, the insistence on pretending that their respectable drugs aren’t the same as street drugs, but they are. One is paid by insurance and gets you into rehab. One isn’t, and you go to jail,” he said. “But Oxy is heroin, Adderall is meth, and Ritalin is cocaine for kids.”
