Keanu Reeves is a beloved actor whose career spans decades. He is handsome, charming, and a famously good person.
He’s the rare sort of person with whom no one has any problem whatsoever.
Almost no one, that is.
Matthew Perry brings up Keanu multiple times in his memoir. Negatively. It genuinely sounds like he’s complaining that Keanu is still alive.
Matthew Perry’s life, career, and public imagine have gone up and down over the years.
For better or for worse, the world best knows him for his role on Friends.
He has penned a memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing. But not all promo tours go as well as one might hope.
As is so often the case, various outlets have released multiple excerpts of Perry’s book to the public.
In one moment in the book, Perry discusses his friendship with the late, great River Phoenix.
“River was a beautiful man, inside and out,” he praised. “Too beautiful for this world, it turned out.”
“It always seems to be the really talented guys who go down,” Perry lamented. That is a common sentiment.
“Why is it that the original thinkers like River Phoenix and Heath Ledger die,” he asked.
“But,” Perry expressed bizarrely, “Keanu Reeves still walks among us?”
That’s an extremely weird, out-of-pocket comment.
It would be hostile to make about anyone. Like, you’re literally complaining that someone is alive. He could have at least made it about someone controversial, or better yet widely despised.
Instead, Perry complained about the life of one of the most altruistic, polite, universally adored actors on the planet.
As a one-off remark, that would be weird. Like, a bad example, dude — and weird to include in a memoir.
Like, people sometimes say things impulsively that sound insensitive. But books go through editing. That was a choice.
And it’s not a choice that Perry made only once. He said it again.
In another portion of the memoir, Perry wrote about the death of the late, great Chris Farley.
“His disease had progressed faster than mine had. (Plus, I had a healthy fear of the word ‘heroin,’ a fear we did not share),” he wrote.
Perry went on: “I punched a hole through Jennifer Aniston’s dressing room wall when I found out. Keanu Reeves walks among us.”
For decades, Keanu has enjoyed a sterling reputation — not only for his public persona, but for his actions in his private life.
It’s not just that people who meet and work with him like him.
He is generous, even with total strangers. Keanu has very quietly transformed people’s lives. Because he’s a good dude.
So … what in the world is going on?
After accidentally becoming a strong contender for Main Character On Twitter this week (a title that you never want), he is trying to walk it back.
“I’m actually a big fan of Keanu,” Matthew Perry now claims to People.
“I just chose a random name, my mistake,” Perry claimed.
“I apologize,” he said.
Perry then added, in a self-deprecatory tone: “I should have used my own name instead.”
We don’t know what beef, real or imagined, Perry may have with the beloved Keanu Reeves.
But he is wise to avoid doubling down on the one-sided loathing after getting ratioed into next week on social media.
Meanwhile, his gripe about Keanu still being alive is sort of funny.
See, between his own tendency to not discernibly age and some pieces of historical art, there’s a mostly-joking theory that Keanu is immortal.
Now tempted to imagine a scenario where Matthew Perry is a longstanding enemy of Keanu’s. Instead of being a fellow immortal, he simply reincarnates with his memories while Keanu simply lives.
That would make more sense than whatever is really going on here.
