Matthew Perry promises to remove Keanu Reeves insult from future editions of memoir

Matthew Perry says that he plans to remove Keanu Reeves’ name from future editions of his 2022 memoir ‘Friends, Lovers, and The Big Terrible Thing’. The bestselling novel disses the Canadian actor several times throughout.

‘Friends, Lovers, and The Big Terrible Thing’ details Perry’s career and time on the show ‘Friends’, as well as his struggles with addiction. The book received backlash for offensive comments in reference to Reeves, including one about his friend River Phoenix’s 1993 death.

What did Matthew Perry write?

“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,” Perry wrote. “Why is it that the original thinkers like River Phoenix and Heath Ledger die, but Keanu Reeves still walks among us?”

Perry also revealed that he worked with the late River Phoenix in a 1988 film, ‘A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon.’ The duo played best friends in the film and became close before Phoenix’s death due to a drug overdose at 23 years old.

Previous apologies

Perry had previously apologized for the remarks in a statement to People in October 2022, claiming he’s a “big fan” of Reeves and had just chosen a “random name” in the prose.

“I apologize. I should have used my own name instead,” he added in the statement.

On Saturday, Perry addresses the Reeves mention once more, this time while speaking to an audience at the Los Angeles Time Festival of Books.

“I said a stupid thing. It was a mean thing to do,” Perry said according to the LA Times. “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.”

“If I run into the guy, I’ll apologize. It was just stupid.”

Perry’s memoir

Perry stirred up quite a bit of media attention after the release of his memoir. Some of the notable details revealed in his book are his brief romantic relationship with Jennifer Aniston, and his inability to watch ‘Friends’ as it forces him to relive his days of drug and alcohol abuse.

“I can’t watch the show, because I was brutally thin and being beaten down so badly by the disease,” said the actor who claimed that he could tell which substance he was using during the show’s 10-year run.

“I could tell season by season by how I looked, and I don’t think anybody else can, but I certainly could. That’s why I don’t want to watch it because that’s what I see — that’s what I notice when I watch it.”