Matthew Perry's break-up with Rachel Dunn sent him spiralling, a former assistant claims. [Source: AP]

Matthew Perry’s ex-girlfriend and former assistant claims his break-up with one of his partners sent him spiralling into addiction.

The actor shot to fame playing Chandler Bing on the sitcom Friends from 1994 to 2004 and died on October 28, 2023, aged 54 from the “acute effects” of anaesthetic ketamine after receiving three injections of the drug, with five people under investigation in connection with his death.

His former lover and employee Kayti Edwards, 47, who dated Perry in 2006 and was his assistant in 2011, has told the Daily Mirror she believes his break-up with Rachel Dunn – whom he dated from 2003 to 2005 – was such a “big, big regret” for him it drove him into drugs.

She said about his pain over his split from Dunn, who was included as a beneficiary in his will: “He loved her so much … she was his one and only girl. I don’t know what happened and why they broke up, but I know that he was the happiest with her.

“Afterwards, he lived with a lot of regret. Their love was very simple… and she loved him before he was huge and he just spiralled afterwards.

“I think that he regrets not marrying her … I know that he wanted kids, and I think that he struggled with time flying by.

“He hadn’t tackled some milestones that he wanted to. If you go back to when they dated, you could see, just in pictures of his face of how content and happy he was.

“But it all started spiralling after his break-up with her. And they say everybody has a kind of trigger or turning point in their addiction where you just didn’t care anymore And I’m pretty sure that break-up kind of started it.”

US Attorney Martin Estrada said two doctors charged in connection to the actor’s death “cared more about profiting off of Mr Perry than caring for his well-being”.

He added: “Matthew Perry’s journey began with unscrupulous doctors who abused their position of trust because they saw him as a payday, to street dealers who gave him ketamine in unmarked vials.”