If you were a bit taken aback and put off by actor Matthew Perry's weird beef with Keanu Reeves in the recently released excerpts from his memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing you're not the only one.
Reeves doesn't get it either.
Before its release last week, Perry shared a few passages including a lament Reeves "still walks among us" while his supposedly more talented contemporaries like River Phoenix died young in the 1990s.
It was weird to essentially wish one star was dead instead of another—especially when the stars in question were best friends—but to say so about a star as unanimously adored as Reeves was... hoo boy.
Wouldn't want to be Perry's publicist, that's for sure.
Reeves was reportedly just as mystified by the move as the rest of us, according to a source close to him who spoke to Us Weekly.
Reeves has stayed silent on the matter, remaining his affable, universally beloved self.
But the source close to him told Us Weekly he was shocked and confused by Perry's comments.
“Keanu thought the comments came out of left field. It’s kind of backfired on Matthew anyway, which is why he had to apologize.”
It definitely did backfire on Perry, there's no doubt about that.
A backlash immediately erupted upon the release of the excerpts, in which Perry laments multiple times that "Keanu Reeves walks among us" while his best friend actor River Phoenix and contemporaries like comedian Chris Farley, a close friend and collaborator of Perry's, both died young of drug overdoses in the 1990s.
Perry also mentioned actor Heath Ledger's death in 2008 as another example of how unfair it is that "Keanu Reeves walks among us," and slyly insulted Reeves' talent, contrasting him with "really talented guys" and "original thinkers" like Phoenix, Farley and Ledger.
Perry's apology only made things worse after he said he chose Reeves' name at "random" and that he "should have used my own name instead.”
On Twitter, people were definitely not surprised Reeves had a bit of a "WTF‽‽" response to the whole thing.
Reeves isn't the only star Perry was less than gracious about in his book. He also revealed he had a romantic encounter with actor Valerie Bertinelli while she was still married, going into great detail about the "long, elaborate make-out session" they shared.
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