– Keanu was born in 1964 in Beirut, Lebanon to a British mother and a father of Hawaian-Chinese descent. Biographical accounts vary as to precisely how old Keanu was when his drug and alcohol addicted father abandoned the family, but he himself remembers that the last time he spent a vacation with him was at age 13. Then the man vanished for a decade (doing prison time too).
– Keanu grew up having one step father after another, as his mother married four times in total.
– Both Keanu and his sister suffer from dyslexia, which made their school years a bit of a struggle. He went to 4 different high schools within 5 years.
– When he was 22, he suffered a horrific motorbike accident in the middle of the night, which left him lying on the pavement for almost thirty minutes with his abdomen sliced open. A truck almost ran him over while he was screaming for help. When the paramedics arrived and tried to take him to the hospital, one of the guys dropped the stretcher (just fabulous). He spent a week in the hospital with broken ribs and a ruptured spleen which eventually had to be removed. The accident left a big scar on his stomach.
– Another accident shortly after that sliced his shin open down to the bone, and his teeth got capped so badly that he had to have them all veneered.
– When Keanu was 27, his sister was diagnosed with leukemia. He lovingly took care of her in all the years she was sick, and around 1999 when she went into remission, he donated a vast sum to hospitals that treat leukemia patients. He also established his own charity, a foundation for children´s hospitals and cancer research. However, he doesn´t want his name to be mentioned, he just wants to make sure the foundation can do what needs to be done.
– When Keanu had just turned 29, his best friend and acting pal River Phoenix died in front of the Viper Room nightclub from overdosing on a Speedball (cocaine and heroine mix).
– In 1999, when Keanu was 35, his then girlfriend Jennifer Syme was pregnant with their daughter. The couple was preparing to welcome baby girl Ava Archer Reeves in the new millennium. However, only 4 weeks prior to that – tragically on Christmas Eve of 1999 – Ava was stillborn. In January 2000, instead of bringing home their little girl, Jennifer and Keanu had to bury her. Only a few weeks later their relationship fell apart over their grief and inability to cope with their loss. Keanu and her remained very close friends though.
– On April 2nd of 2001, while he was in the middle of shooting The Matrix 2, Jennifer lost control over her vehicle driving along a boulevard in L.A. around 6 a.m. and was killed in a horrific crash. After Jennifer´s sobbing mother had phoned him, Keanu made a call to the coroner´s office to find out if it was really true – and asked if they needed him to come and identify her. He was spared this sad duty. When Jennifer was buried though, he was one of her pallbearers. After completing the shoot of the Matrix 2, he used his money to buy all members of the stunt team a Harley. He no longer cared about any material wealth.
– Around 2015 he learned that his sister had a relapse and was battling cancer again.
Keanu regularly takes paycuts, so that film crew members can get a bonus.
Keanu rides the subway and gets up to offer his seat to elderly and sick people, pregnant women, moms with little kids.
If he can avoid it and it isn´t part of his promotional work that he has to do, he never, ever attends any celebrity parties, red carpets, fashion and award shows. He doesn´t talk about his private life.
He doesn´t shmooze around with rotating flings and girlfriends on red carpets and out for paparazzi. He has never married, has never divorced.
He doesn´t whinge and complain about how he was picked on and “racially abused” because he is mixed race.
He doesn´t talk crap about his relatives, he doesn´t smear his deadbeat father although he would have every reason to.
He got ridiculed and called a “wooden, talentless actor” but has managed to have a stellar career.
He donates a ton of his money to charities.
Not a single person in the industry who has worked with him on a movie set has ever said a bad word about him or accused him of misconduct, sexual harassment etc.
Keanu has read ALL of Proust´s work, he reads Shakespeare and can recite his sonnets by heart. And if you buy him a beer and share a cigarette with him, he´ll talk to you for hours about anything as if he´s known you for years.
I have nothing but mad respect and love for Keanu. Keanu is the shit. Keanu is The Chosen One.
This man is truly a treasure.
He holds Canadian citizenship and american green card. “Money is the last thing I think about. I could live on what I have already made for the next few centuries.” He is an amazing human being. 🤩
Published
House of Brat 