Friends star Matthew Perry will remove controversial references to Keanu Reeves from his autobiography. The 53-year-old, who played Chandler Bing in the hugely popular sitcom, faced a backlash after referencing Reeves in his memoir 'Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing'.
The memoir is an open and frank account of Perry's life in acting, as well as his struggles dealing with substance abuse and addiction. However, there are two mentions of Reeves, 58, which some took to be disparaging.
One excerpt references the death of Perry's friend, the actor River Phoenix in 1993, who was his co-star in the 1988 film A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon. Phoenix died in 1993, aged 23, after an overdose of cocaine and heroin.
“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?”
Speaking at the LA Times Festival of Books on Saturday (April 22), Perry - who has already apologised for using Reeves' name - admitted it was a 'mean' and 'stupid' thing to do.
“I said a stupid thing. It was a mean thing to do,” he said. “I pulled his name because I live on the same street.
"Any future versions of the book will not have his name in it."
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He added that he would apologise in person if he were to bump into him. An earlier apology from Perry read: “I apologize. I should have used my own name instead."
He said that he was a 'big fan' of Reeves and insisted he had chosen a 'random name'.
