Matthew Perry certainly didn’t hold back when he released his memoir Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing. The actor who portrayed Chandler Bing on Friends opened up about how bad his addiction got when the show was on the air, the day Jennifer Aniston confronted him about his drinking, and his heart stopping during a recent surgery. But possibly the biggest head-scratcher in the tell-all was the unprovoked shot that Perry hurled at Keanu Reeves. The Fools Rush In star has since apologized to the John Wick actor, and he recently confirmed he’ll be making a change in his book to correct his mistake.
In Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, Matthew Perry wrote about the deaths of the “talented” Heath Ledger, River Phoenix and Chris Farley, wondering how those “original thinkers” were taken from this life, but “Keanu Reeves still walks among us?” At the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on April 22, Perry revealed that Reeves’ name will be removed from all future editions of his memoir, explaining (per Variety):
I said a stupid thing. It was a mean thing to do. I pulled his name because I live on the same street. I've apologized publicly to him. Any future versions of the book will not have his name in it.
The backlash over Matthew Perry’s sentiment started before Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing even hit bookshelves, as the excerpts of the book were released prior to its publication date. Perry immediately apologized, saying he’d chosen Keanu Reeves’ name at random and had no personal beef with the actor.
It was pretty bad luck, though, for that name to come to Matthew Perry’s mind randomly for that joke, since The Matrix star is widely regarded as one of the most likable guys in Hollywood. People who have worked with him confirm that every good thing you hear about Keanu Reeves is “110% true.”
Fans also find him quite endearing. His adorable interview with Drew Barrymore on her talk show lives rent-free in my head, and I must not be the only one, because the clip keeps running around the Internet.
Keanu Reeves hasn’t publicly commented on Matthew Perry's diss, but reports say he was taken aback, since it seemed to come out of left field. It doesn’t seem the neighbors have run into each other since then either, with Perry also saying on Saturday:
If I run into the guy, I’ll apologize. It was just stupid.
It’s unknown what name Matthew Perry will replace Keanu Reeves’ name with in future editions of his memoir, but he previously said he should have just used his own name. It’s a little surprising that he didn’t; you’d think self-deprecation would be second-nature to the Chandler portrayer. Time will tell exactly how he’s handling it.
In the meantime, you can rewatch all 10 seasons of Friends with an HBO Max subscription, and you can see Keanu Reeves in John Wick: Chapter Four, which is in theaters now.
