Someone who says they know Matthew Perry better than most is finding the story surrounding his death a little sus.

Well, let’s start with the version we know. Perry played some pickleball and went home for a soak in the hot tub. While he was alone, it’s believed, he had some kind of cardiac event. Unfortunately, since he was in the hot tub, he slipped under the surface and drowned. His assistant came home, found him, held his head above water and called 911 — but it was too late. A tragic, awful tale. Something that could happen to anyone.

But not to Matthew Perry, says Kayti Edwards. The former model reportedly dated the Friends star briefly in 2006. And she says based on her experience with him, she isn’t buying the official story. Why? She told The Sun on Sunday:

“There are a lot of things that aren’t adding up for me. I don’t believe he just drowned in his Jacuzzi, that doesn’t sound right. I know Matthew and I know that he wouldn’t have just drowned.”

Um… what?? Sorry, but… WTF does that mean? Like, in all the years she knew him he’d never drowned before? He never talked about wanting to drown? Sorry, but seriously — what a nonsensical statement. People who have heart attacks tend to do things they wouldn’t ordinarily, like fall off ladders and slip in the shower. Because, you know, they lose consciousness suddenly.

Photos: Matthew Perry’s Sad, Amazing, Complicated Dating History

Anyway, Kayti thinks it must have been opioids. What reason does Kayti, who says she spoke to Perry as recently as last year after his memoir came out, have to suspect he had a relapse? When all his current friends who saw him in his final hours are saying he was “100% sober”?

“They said there were no prescription painkillers at the scene, which doesn’t surprise me, because he didn’t leave drugs lying around. He was paranoid and would take them all, so there wasn’t any evidence, and then go out for more when he was ready to.”

Kayti, who now runs a horse rescue center, thinks the sign he was using again was the Batman-centric posts over the past year. She says:

“That Mattman thing was not something he did when he was sober. Mattman would come out when he was not sober and he felt kind of invincible. I was around when he was getting high, although I was not getting high with him, and when I would say maybe he should cool it a little bit with the drugs, he would say, ‘No, I’m Mattman.'”

Another factor? He liked water when he was high, Kayti recalls:

“One time, his neighbor in Hollywood Hills found Matthew naked and high in his swimming pool. I had to go over there and get him out of his neighbor’s pool. He had a thing with water when he was doing drugs. He always wanted to be in the pool or the Jacuzzi.”

OK. Or, and here us out, he just liked swimming and soaking generally? A lot of folks do…

Kayti told The Sun she and Matthew dated after meeting through her grandfather, legendary comedy director Blake Edwards. They met again later in AA and hit it off, dating for a few months.

It was a relationship Matthew never publicly confirmed, near as we can tell — just something she started telling tabloids about a few years ago. The only other place we’d heard her name was back around 2018 — when she came forward claiming Dax Shepard had cheated on Kristen Bell with her.

Is she just looking to get her name out there? We can’t say for sure. We’re not just going to completely discount that Kayti means well here. Maybe she isn’t just looking to get her name in the headlines again and genuinely cares about finding the truth about Matthew Perry. But her logic is pretty bad.

The absence of pills is not a good clue he was taking pills. The fact he was alone is not a sign he was using. Using a hot tub is not a red flag.

The thing is, Kayti dated the Whole Nine Yards star at a time when he was still losing his battle to drugs. The stories she tells The Sun are harrowing. She says when they were hanging out Matthew was doing heroin and crack — and that he jonesed so bad he once superglued his hands to his legs to try not to use! Wow. That’s really bad.

But we have to think she might be letting the Matthew Perry she knew at that time define and color everything she hears about his death. The same way people you knew in high school can only ever see the high school version of you. Because everyone who knew Matthew Perry more recently swears he was sober.

What do YOU think of Kayti’s claims?

[Image via BBC1/WENN/InTouch Weekly/YouTube.]

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