Friends actor Matthew Perry is getting a lot of buzz right now leading up to next week’s release of his memoir, “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing.” He has been on talk shows promoting it, and there have been articles talking about the most salacious tidbits, like his battle with addiction, and his crush on co-star Jennifer Aniston.
But maybe the most outrageous part of the whole thing was Perry’s unexpected and uncalled for negative comments about actor Keanu Reeves.
Variety reports that at two points in the memoir, Perry questions why Reeves is still alive when “talented” actors and “original thinkers” like River Phoenix and Chris Farley had tragic deaths.
“The list of geniuses who were ahead of their time is too long to detail here — suffice to say, near the top of any such list should be my costar in ‘A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon,’ River Phoenix,” Perry writes.
Perry continues later on, “River was a beautiful man, inside and out — too beautiful for this world, it turned out. It always seems to be the really talented guys who go down. Why is it that the original thinkers like River Phoenix and Heath Ledger die, but Keanu Reeves still walks among us? River was a better actor than me; I was funnier. But I certainly held my own in our scenes — no small feat, when I look back decades later.”
Keanu Reeves is cited again when Perry writes about the death of comedian 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),” Perry writes. “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.”
Okay… first of all, it’s absolutely devastating that these young, talented actors died from their addictions. It’s senseless and such a loss. But why on earth would you choose to pit those deaths against the fact that someone totally unrelated is still alive? Keanu Reeves has had so much tragedy in his own life, and yet we have story after story across the internet about how he is the kindest person. He’s practically America’s Sweetheart, so I don’t know why Perry chose him to single out as some sort of anomaly as to why he’s still standing. As if he has less of a reason to live because he isn’t as superior an actor as those others mentioned? That’s a weird and dark path to take, Perry, and it’s not winning you any points from fans.
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