Matthew Perry’s ex Maeve Quinlan says his death ‘wasn’t a shock’

nypost.com:

The “Bold and the Beautiful” star Maeve Quinlan only has nice memories of her relationship with the late Matthew Perry. The actress, 59, opened up about the “Friends” star — who died in October 2023 at the age of 54 — with Soap Opera Digest recently, claiming he was “100% sober” when they were together.The “Serving Sara” actor died from “acute effects of ketamine,” according to his autopsy report.Quinlan and Perry were together from 2002 until 2003 after meeting at a tennis game, with the latter struggling with substance abuse throughout his life. “We got on like a house on fire,” she lovingly recalled.The soap star actually knew of the Canadian actor before their initial meeting, calling him “the cute guy by the elevator.”The two lived in the same apartment building in Los Angeles when he first started out in Hollywood.

But it wasn’t until Perry scored his hit role of Chandler Bing in the 1994 NBC sitcom that Quinlan realized who he was.“I had the biggest crush on him, but I never saw him again because by the time the show was picked up, he had — like every actor does — moved to the Hollywood Hills,” she told the outlet.“When Matthew and I embarked on a romantic relationship he was 100% sober and was very open about his previous struggles,” she said. “That was his one fully sober year, and we were practically inseparable.

One of the reasons he liked being with me was that I didn’t do drugs,” the “South of Nowhere” alum went on, adding that she “never” saw him drink or do drugs during their courtship.

In 1997, the “Fools Rush In” actor became addicted to Vicodin following a jet-ski accident. He entered rehab that same year.He then relapsed in 2001 and went to in-patient rehabilitation once again in an effort to combat.