The 'Friends' star Matthew Perry drowned in the pool at his home in October, aged 54, after taking ketamine following years of struggling with drug abuse and now his former partner Maeve has opened up about their romance revealing the actor was "100 per cent sober" when they were together and later hid his troubles whenever things got bad.
The 59-year-old actress told Soap Opera Digest: "It wasn't a shock [when his died] but I still couldn't believe it happened ... When Matthew and I embarked on a romantic relationship he was 100 per cent sober and was very open about his previous struggles ... 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".
She went on to explain Matthew was "protective" of her because her previous husband Tom Sizemore had also battled drug addiction.
Maeve added: "He knew my first husband, Tom Sizemore, was an addict ... Because Matthew was always so extremely careful around me, I never saw him take a drink or abuse any substances. When we were inseparable, he was totally sober."
The pair dated for a year after getting together in 2002 and they remained close friends after the split, but Maeve insists her pal wasn't honest with her about his struggles.
She added: "As the years went on, he would hide it from me if he wasn't doing well. He had some nasty and scary near-death stuff that he kept from me as he hated to disappoint me if he was using. That's when he would go silent."
It comes after Matthew's step-father - 'Dateline' correspondent Keith Morrison - admitted he wasn't completely surprised by the actor's death.
Asked if he was surprised by Matthew's death, he told Hoda Kotb on her 'Making Space' podcast: "It was the news you never want to get, but you think someday you might.
"So yes, and no, I guess is the answer to that... And as he said himself, 'If I suddenly died, people would be shocked, but not too many people would be surprised.' And he was right."
Keith also admitted the grief has been hard on their family, particularly Matthew's mother Suzanne Langford Perry, who Keith married in 1981.
He said: "As other people have told me hundreds of times, it doesn't go away. It's with you every day. It's with you all the time, and there's some new aspect of it that assaults your brain. It's not easy, especially for his mom."