If you’re terminally online, you’ll be aware that the internet loves Keanu Reeves. Those John Wick movies certainly helped, but the actor’s reputation for offscreen kindness has endeared him to millions.
Not Chandler Bing though. Friends star Matthew Perry is currently hawking his tell-all memoir around town, and it’s full of fascinating revelations.
There’s lots of talk about his decades-long battle with substance abuse; he recalls having to pull out of Don’t Look Up due to his heart stopping for several minutes; he explains that his colon once burst from opioid use. This ain’t your typically dreary famous person autobiography.
The passages referencing Reeves, however, are pretty weird. “Why is it that the original thinkers like River Phoenix and Heath Ledger die, but Keanu Reeves still walks among us?” he writes in the memoir, titled Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing (as per Page Six).
He’s certainly right about the generational talent of Phoenix and Ledger – who knows what towering performances the latter had in store post-Dark Knight – but the bitter mention of Reeves feels unnecessary.
Perry wasn’t done there. While discussing the death of Saturday Night Live icon Chris Farley, who died of an overdose in 1997 aged 33, he got in another dig at Reeves.
“I punched a hole through Jennifer Aniston’s dressing room wall when I found out,” he writes. “Keanu Reeves walks among us.”
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Interestingly, it doesn’t seem as if Perry and Reeves have ever worked together throughout their lengthy careers. Where does this beef stem from? Does Perry really hate Reeves’ acting in Bram Stoker’s Dracula? Is he envious of his John Wick success?
Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, whatever you think of some of Perry’s opinions, should make for great reading. The memoir is set for release on November 1st (pre-order here).
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