Matthew Perry caught the attention of people when his memoir contained a passage asking why certain actors died young while Keanu Reeves lives. While Reeves has not made a public ordeal out of Perry's tasteless comments, he has responded to them.
Friends actor Perry deserves the public's sympathy and admiration for publicizing his battle with addiction for the past three decades. He does not deserve any sympathy or adoration for questioning why Reeves is still alive while other famed actors have passed on like Chris Farley and River Phoenix have passed on. Although Perry was quick to apologize for what he said about the long-time action star after that portion of his memoir Friends, Lover, and the Big Terrible Thing went public, Reeves did not take too kindly to Perry's words.
For context, Perry said the following in his memoir: "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. Why is it that the original thinkers like River Phoenix and Heath Ledger die, but Keanu Reeves still walks among us?" This portion of the memoir received such immediate colossal backlash that Perry quickly apologized for his comments about Reeves. However, US Weekly provided an inside scoop on how Reeves felt after the portion went public. “Keanu thought the comments came out of left field,” said an insider. “It’s kind of backfired on Matthew anyway, which is why he had to apologize."
Beforehand, there had been no reported conflict between the two actors. In fact, when Perry apologized, he even said that he was a fan of Reeves' work as an actor. Both Perry and Reeves achieved their fame more or less around the same time, although Reeves' big break first came with Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure in 1989, while Perry got his big break with Friends in 1994. Reeves' career has seen a resurgence ever since John Wick came out in 2014, while Perry hasn't done much notable work since Friends ended in 2004.
The saddest part about this whole fiasco is that Perry's joke absolutely could have worked if he had removed Reeves from it and replaced his name with the likes of abhorrent infamous Hollywood monsters like Harvey Weinstein or Bill Cosby. Then people not only would have found it funny, but they also probably would have thought he made a good point. The fact remains that Reeves has not done anything to warrant having such an insensitive quip directed right at him like that.
Let this be a lesson to those who are trying to reach sobriety. Even while recovering from something as serious as addiction - and being brave enough to let the public know about it - making a joke at the expense of an innocent person's livelihood will make people lose a certain amount of their sympathy for you right away because wishing death on someone like that is as distasteful as it is lame. There's a fine line between being funny and being off-putting.
Friends can currently be watched on HBO Max.
Source: Us Weekly