A new excerpt from Matthew Perry‘s upcoming memoir is making the rounds, and it appears that the Friends star either really hates Keanu Reeves or he completely biffed a very dark joke about celebrity overdoses. It’s pretty awkward. In Perry’s book, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, the actor gets candid about his decades-long battle with addiction and alcohol abuse that plagued his time on the hit NBC sitcom and beyond. However, part of that candidness seems to involve animosity towards Reeves.
“Why is it that the original thinkers like River Phoenix and Heath Ledger die, but Keanu Reeves still walks among us?” Perry wrote. At first, this seems like the actor tapping into some Chandler-esque sarcasm, but he repeats the sentiment while talking about the deaths of Phoenix and Chris Farley. Perry starred in films with both actors and became close friends with each before their deaths, which deeply affected him — and fueled his apparent hate for Reeves.
Via Page Six:
While battling addiction at the height of his “Friends” fame and playing Chandler Bing, Perry signed on to film “Almost Heroes,” a 1988 comedy co-starring Farley. When he found out that the “SNL” star had died of an overdose in 1997, at age 33, Perry once again seemed to think it wasn’t fair that Reeves was still alive.
“I punched a hole through Jennifer Aniston’s dressing room wall when I found out,” he writes. “Keanu Reeves walks among us.”
As Page Six notes, Perry and Reeves have never worked together, which could be another sign of Perry’s animosity towards the iconic movie star. That said, the (double) mention of Reeves could all be a misguided joke on Perry’s part. The guy’s brand is dark, dripping sarcasm, and he may have gone a just little too heavy on the dark this time around.
Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing hits bookshelves on November 1.
(Via Page Six)
