What did Matthew Perry say about Keanu Reeves? Comments in Friends star’s book - and retraction explained

Matthew Perry, who is best known for playing Chandler Bing in US sitcom Friends, released his much anticipated memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, last year. In the book he spoke candidly about his childhood, career, and struggles with alcohol addiction.

But the best-selling memoir also featured a bizarre slight at a fellow actor which came ‘out of left field’ and saw Perry face a backlash for his comments. Perry levelled an insult at the star of the John Wick and Matrix films, Keanu Reeves, and in what could be seen as further provocation, also mentioned the late close friend of Reeves, River Phoenix.

With the comments not going down well among readers, Perry later apologised and recently announced that the offending lines would be removed from future copies of the book.

What did Matthew Perry say about Keanu Reeves?

In his memoir, published in November last year, Perry wrote: "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?"

Ledger, best known for his roles in A Knight’s Tale, Brokeback Mountain, and as the Joker in The Dark Knight, died from an accidental overdose of prescription drugs in 2008. Phoenix, who starred alongside Reeves in I Love You to Death, and My Own Private Idaho, died of a drug overdose outside the Viper Room club on the Los Angeles Sunset Strip in 1993, aged 23.

Keanu previously said that he and River Phoenix were close friends, he told Esquire in 2021: “He was a really special person, so original, unique, smart, talented, fiercely creative. Thoughtful. Brave. And funny. And dark. And light. It was great to have known him.”

With the comments not going down well among readers, Perry later apologised and recently announced that the offending lines would be removed from future copies of the book.

Has Matthew Perry apologised for his Keanu Reeves comments?

Perry walked back his comments at a Los Angeles Times Festival of Books event, where he said “I pulled his name because I live on the same street. I've apologised publicly to him. Any future versions of the book will not have his name in it. It was just stupid.”

Perry said that he should have used his own name instead of another actor's. He added that he hadn’t apologised to Reeves in person but said that if he ran into him he would.  Perry said that despite the comments he had made in his book, he is actually a fan of the actor.

What has Keanu Reeves said about Matthew Perry’s comments?

Reeves has not publicly commented on what Perry wrote, however US Weekly reported that an anonymous insider said that Reeves thought the comments came out of ‘left field’ and that they had backfired.