Matthew Perry on Keanu Reeves diss: ‘I just chose a random name’
Be excellent to each other.
Matthew Perry is apologizing for comments he made about Keanu Reeves in his forthcoming book “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing.”
“Why is it that the original thinkers like River Phoenix and Heath Ledger die, but Keanu Reeves still walks among us?” Perry, 53, writes in his memoir.
The “Friends” star is now apologizing, telling Deadline in a statement: “I’m actually a big fan of Keanu. I just chose a random name, my mistake. I apologize. I should have used my own name instead.”
Perry writes in his memoir that Phoenix, who died of a drug overdose in 1993 at 23 years old, was “a beautiful man, inside and out and too beautiful for this world, it turned out.” He added that “it always seems to be the talented guys who go down.”
Perry befriended Phoenix — who was Reeves’ longtime best friend — when filming “A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon” in 1988. He shares how he sobbed when he found out Phoenix died outside the Viper Room in West Hollywood.
“I heard the screaming from my apartment; went back to bed; woke up to the news,” Perry remembered.
Reeves was brought up yet another time in Perry’s memoir when talking about Chris Farley, who died of a drug overdose in 1997 at 33 years old. Perry and Farley co-starred in the 1998 comedy “Almost Heroes.”
“I punched a hole through Jennifer Aniston’s dressing room wall when I found out. Keanu Reeves walks among us. I had to promote ‘Almost Heroes’ two weeks after he died; I found myself publicly discussing his death from drugs and alcohol. I was high the entire time,” Perry wrote.
Reeves and Perry do not seem to share any TV or film credits, according to IMDb.
In the book, Perry also reveals how he almost died at the age of 49, how his colostomy helped him kick his addiction, how he spent about $9 million trying to get sober and more.
“Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing” will be available Nov. 1.
