Matthew Perry Seemingly Has Bitter Feelings About Keanu Reeves

Now this is something we never thought we'd hear: Matthew Perry has an apparent hatred of Keanu Reeves. In his new tell-all memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, out November 1, the Friends alum writes about his disdain for Reeves' life as he is struck with tragedy.

“Why is it that the original thinkers like River Phoenix and Heath Ledger die, but Keanu Reeves still walks among us?” Perry writes in the memoir. His first movie, 1988's A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon, Perry acted alongside Reeves' longtime best friend River Phoenix. In the film, Perry plays Phoenix's best friend and they became close while filming in Chicago. River tragically overdosed at age 23 in 1993.

Perry, 53, writes, “River was a beautiful man inside and out and too beautiful for this world, it turned out. It always seems to be the really talented guys who go down." Perry recounted the day he heard the news of Phoneix dying outside the Viper Room in West Hollywood adding, “I heard the screaming from my apartment; went back to bed; woke up to the news.”

Elsewhere in the book, Perry gets another dig in at Reeves following Chris Farley’s death at age 33 in 1997. Perry co-starred with Farley on the 1998 comedy Almost Heroes. At this point, Perry was battling addiction at the height of his Friends fame. Once again, Perry didn't think it was fair that Reeves was still alive, writing, “I punched a hole through Jennifer Aniston’s dressing room wall when I found out. Keanu Reeves walks among us.”

As we earlier reported, Perry revealed to the New York Times that after his Friends character, Chandler Bing, married Monica Gellar (Courteney Cox) in the season 7 finale, he was “driven back to the treatment center …in a pickup truck helmed by a sober technician.”

He revealed he started drinking at age 14 and later become addicted to opioids which lead to going to rehab 15 times and having 14 surgeries on his stomach. According to Perry, he’s now been sober since early 2021.