Matthew Perry to remove Keanu Reeves’ name from memoir after insulting actor

Friends actor Matthew Perry is making a slight change to his tell-all memoir after insulting his LA neighbour Keanu Reeves in the original edition.

Matthew Perry and Keanu Reeves. Picture: Getty

Matthew Perry said he plans to remove Keanu Reeves’ name from future editions of his 2022 memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, which detailed his struggle with addiction after dissing the actor several times in the book

Perry, 53, made the apology when the Friends star appeared at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, reports the New York Post.

“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 apologised publicly to him. Any future versions of the book will not have his name in it.”

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

Matthew Perry says mentioning Keanu Reeves’ name in his memoir was a ‘stupid thing’ to do. Picture: Theo Wargo/Getty Images/AFP

In Perry’s book, the 17 Again actor states several times that Reeves is an actor who “still walks among us” even though “the original thinkers like River Phoenix and Heath Ledger die”.

The Post reached out to Perry for comment.

Perry also reveals that he worked with the late River Phoenix – who was also close with Reeves – in the 1988 film A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon.

The duo played best friends in the film and also became close until Phoenix’s death due to a drug overdose in 1993 at the age of 23.

Matthew Perry appeared to insult Keanu Reeves in his memoir by wondering why he ‘still walks among us’. Picture: Monica Schipper/Getty Images

Perry first issued an apology to Reeves, 58, in October 2022, saying that he was actually a very big fan of the actor’s work.

“I’m actually a big fan of Keanu,” Perry said in his October statement. “I just chose a random name, my mistake. I apologise. I should have used my own name instead.”

A source close to the Matrix star also revealed that the actor was taken aback by Perry’s comments.

“Keanu thought the comments came out of left field,” a source told Us Weekly shortly after the book’s release. “It’s kind of backfired on Matthew anyway, which is why he had to apologise.”

Perry and Reeves have never had a public feud so the bizarre comments led several people to speculate that The Whole Nine Yards actor had some weird obsession with him.

In his memoir, Matthew Perry admitted to harbouring a crush on co-star Jennifer Aniston. Picture: NBC

Other details covered in Perry’s explosive biography include the revelation that the actor suffered from impotence when he first attempted to have sex and that he harboured romantic feelings for his co-star Jennifer Aniston before she shut him down.

Perry also revealed that he’s not able to watch the hit NBC comedy because it forces him to relive his days of alcohol and drug addiction.

“I can’t watch the show, because I was brutally thin and being beaten down so badly by the disease,” said the actor who also 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,” the Serving Sara star said. “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.”

This article originally appeared in the New York Post and was reproduced with permission