Matthew Perry removed his macabre references to Keanu Reeves from his memoir

Matthew Perry removed his macabre references to Keanu Reeves from his memoir

04/25/2023

Last year, Matthew Perry published his memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing. He detailed his addiction issues, his fight to get clean and sober and he also spilled some tea about Friends. Unfortunately, Perry also decided to make a few disgusting broadsides at Keanu Reeves, a man he barely knows. Keanu and Perry are sort of the same generation (Perry is 53, Keanu is 58) and it felt like Perry was trying to attack Keanu for… still being alive when River Phoenix is dead? Perry included asides like: “Why is it that the original thinkers like River Phoenix and Heath Ledger die, but Keanu Reeves still walks among us?” Perry apologized when there was a backlash about it last year. Now Perry says that he’s pulled those lines from future editions of his book.

Matthew Perry not only regrets insulting Keanu Reeves in his new book — he’s pulling Reeves’ name out of future editions of “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing,” Perry’s memoir of his long struggle with substance abuse and addiction.

Perry shared news of the revision at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, addressing a capacity crowd at USC’s Bovard Auditorium on Saturday afternoon during a panel moderated by Matt Brennan, The Times’ deputy editor for arts and entertainment.

“I said a stupid thing. It was a mean thing to do,” Perry said, referring to his lament in the book that former co-stars River Phoenix and Chris Farley had died while Reeves “walks among us.”

“I pulled his name because I live on the same street,” Perry said. “I’ve apologized publicly to him. Any future versions of the book will not have his name in it.” He said he hadn’t apologized in person to Reeves, but added: “If I run into the guy, I’ll apologize. It was just stupid.”

Although Perry is proud that a new generation of fans has come to appreciate “Friends” almost 20 years after the series ended, he accepts criticism that it lacked diversity.

“It was a different time,” he said. “Nobody talked about diversity.” At the same time, he added, “we were all stupid.” Now, he said, “Diversity is a huge issue. It’s the right thing to do.”

[From The Los Angeles Times]

Okay, so I still have a question – it was clear from reading just excerpts that Perry was trying to “joke” and the joke was going to fall flat, so why didn’t his editor convince him to take it out before it made it to print in the first place? My guess is that his editor was like “are you sure you want to keep this Keanu stuff in the book?” and Perry was like “yes, it needs to go in, I hate that guy and people will think I’m so funny!” Anyway, the fact that Matthew Perry was wishing death on one of the most well-liked men in Hollywood was always going to do more damage to Perry. It’s good that they’re taking out those lines.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.

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