Matthew Perry Says He’ll Remove Those Keanu Reeves Disses from Future Editions of Memoir | CPT PPP Coverage

Chronicling his life and struggle with addiction through his time on “Friends” and beyond, Perry came under fire almost immediately for one insensitive comment made in the book. And it wasn’t a one-off, either, as he made the same reference twice.

Inexplicably — and even Perry couldn’t justify or explain it — he would lament the loss of “original thinkers like River Phoenix, Chris Farley and Heath Ledger,” making that statement in contrast to the fact that Keanu Reeves “still walks among us.” Adding a little bite to the sting, he also described the former pair as “the really talented guys.”

After the initial backlash, Perry apologized and said that he chose “a random name.” He further said he probably should have just used his own. At the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on Saturday, he explained he chose Reeves because they live on the same street.

“I said a stupid thing,” he acknowledged of the references in his book. “It was a mean thing to do.”

He went on to note that he’d publicly apologized to Reeves, but also took it a step further, adding, “Any future versions of the book will not have his name in it.”

He acknowledged that he has not had opportunity to apologize to Reeves personally. “If I run into the guy, I’ll apologize,” he said at the festival. “It was just stupid.”

For his part, Reeves reportedly felt that the comments came “out of left field,” per Us Weekly, adding that it kind of backfired on him anyway, as he quickly had to apologize.

Elsewhere during his appearance at the festival, Perry acknowledged the lack of diversity on “Friends,” which is just one of the reasons there has been a backlash against the smash hit NBC show in recent years — though it remains a streaming juggernaut.

“It was a different time,” Perry said of the show, which ran from 1994 to 2004. “Nobody talked about diversity.”

That said, he acknowledged that “diversity is a huge issue. It’s the right thing to do.”