When it comes to movie stars, Keanu Reeves
is about as big as they come, and it doesn't hurt that he's got a reputation as one of
Hollywood's nicest people, either. Beneath it all, however, is a truly heartbreaking
story. This is the tragic truth about Keanu Reeves. Keanu Reeves has been estranged from his father
for a very long time. Samuel Reeves was the son in a wealthy family
who was vacationing in Lebanon when he met and married a local showgirl named Patricia. The union resulted in Keanu and a sister,
Kim, but not much else, Keanu was just three when his parents split and his father left
the family. He kept in touch until Keanu was 13, but Samuel
Reeves' departure still had a profound impact on Keanu's life. In 2019, he told The Guardian: "For sure, I think it's definitely traumatizing. But it's hard to know how [it affected me]
because I don't know what that other life would have been, you know what I mean?" Keanu's mother took her son and daughter and
moved to New York City, where she eventually married director Paul Aaron. The new family then hopped up to Toronto,
the couple split the following year, and Keanu, his sister, and his mother moved again, and
moved many more times after that, too. Keanu says his estranged father did attempt
to reach out to him at least once, though. He told The Guardian: "Yeah, in the mid-90s, but I didn't reach
back out." Why? He doesn't say. This attempt at contact came on the heels
of his father's conviction for selling heroin, but, as Keanu says: "That wasn't why I didn't get in touch! I just didn't." When People magazine spoke to Paula Warder,
Keanu Reeves' primary school teacher from the Jesse Ketchum Public School in Toronto,
she remembered: "I don't think he ever got to a class on time. And when he did arrive, he wasn't quite, well...with
it. He always left his books at home or forgot
his homework. But he'd just smile and go back home and get
them. And somehow he did pass his classes." When The Mail on Sunday sat down with Keanu
Reeves, he revealed a few insights into his younger years: including his obsession with
sci-fi. Reeves said: "I used to escape into another world as a
kid...It was that whole idea of getting out of my own circumstances, a fascination with
distant planets, unknown mysteries, going wherever the imagination could go. I loved Star Wars, 2001: A Space Odyssey,
and Blade Runner." Keanu says that while he excelled at a few
things, including ice hockey, writing, and chess, his difficulties were, in hindsight,
all on him. The actor explained: "I guess I didn't fit in. I had conflicts and run-ins with the staff. The principal and I didn't see eye to eye. I was one of those 'Why?' kids, I asked too many questions about everything. I couldn't stop, even if it got me into trouble." Perhaps unsurprisingly, Keanu Reeves' school
career came to an abrupt end when he was expelled at 16. Hollywood is a tough world to navigate, and
always has been, especially for child and teen stars. Some of their stories are downright tragic,
and in the 1990s, Keanu Reeves witnessed first-hand just how tragic they could be. River Phoenix had his first massive hit in
1986 with Stand By Me. Just a few years later, in 1991, he was starring
opposite Reeves in My Own Private Idaho. "I really wanna kiss you, man. Goodnight, man." Unfortunately, Phoenix's past was itself hugely
troubled, and by the time the early 90s rolled around, he had slipped into the world of heroin,
crack, and coke. On October 30th 1993, he collapsed and died
outside a club after overdosing on heroin and cocaine. Phoenix's addiction had begun during the filming
of My Own Private Idaho, a movie Reeves had convinced him to take part in. They'd met on the set of I Love You To Death,
and when Reeves read the script for Idaho, he hopped on his motorcycle and rode from
Toronto to Florida just to take Phoenix a copy. Just a few years later, one of Hollywood's
most promising young actors was gone. Later, People magazine would quote an anonymous
friend of Reeves as saying: "It's something he thinks about all the time,
something he never really talks about. Friends know not to go there with him." Everyone's heard the stories about how great
a guy Keanu Reeves is, about how he'll stop to help someone who's broken down on the side
of the road, or go out of his way to sign an autograph for a fan too shy to ask. But according to what he told The Guardian,
he's not too fond of these stories being spread around. In fact, the actor got his back up a little
when he was asked about some of the stories, saying: "I'm pretty private, so when that stuff doesn't
stay private it is not that great." When asked whether this might be because these
stories would seem less sincere if they got out, Keanu replied: "No. Because it's private." And that makes sense. In an interview in The Jakarta Post, Keanu
was asked about his home in West Hollywood, and whether or not he could walk around and
still be left in peace. He explained: "Sometimes you feel like an animal in a cage. But in Los Angeles, no one cares. There are definitely paparazzi chasing after
you, but I don't go out much, I don't really do anything. I'm pretty boring." Keanu's dedication to keeping his private
life private extends to his family, too. His sister Kim was diagnosed with leukemia
sometime around 1991. For the next decade, she continued to fight
the disease before finally going into remission. Reeves was at her side for much of it: People
quoted an anonymous friend as saying: "When she was in the hospital he was there
with her all the time, sitting at her bedside, holding her hand." Unsurprisingly, the experience had a lasting
impact on Keanu, and while he's gone above and beyond in trying to help other families
going through similar things, he's super private about that work, too. In 2009, he revealed to Ladies Home Journal: "I have a private foundation that's been running
for five or six years, and it helps aid a couple of children's hospitals and cancer
research. I don't like to attach my name to it, I just
let the foundation do what it does." In 1998, Keanu Reeves met the love of his
young life at a party. Her name was Jennifer Syme, and they immediately
started dating. Unfortunately, the relationship had a tragic
trajectory. Syme became pregnant, and in 1999, she gave
birth to a stillborn baby girl they named Ava. Syme suffered not only from the grief of her
loss, but also from severe postnatal depression, and the two broke up only a few weeks later. Some time later, Syme was working as David
Lynch's assistant when she met Marilyn Manson. She put the two in touch, leading to their
collaboration on Lost Highway, and Syme went on to become good friends with Manson. In April 2001, he invited her to a party. At some point, Manson got a designated driver
to take her home. But it seems as though Syme later wanted to
return, because she got back in her car and began driving. Tragically, she collided with three parked
cars, was thrown from her vehicle, and was pronounced dead at the scene. Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Syme had remained
close even after breaking up: People magazine says they had been spotted having brunch the
day before she died. They quoted a friend as saying: "[He's] finding it very, very difficult to
cope with her death." Take a glance at Keanu Reeves' credits, and
you'll see he's been working pretty consistently for decades. But the truth is that looks can be deceiving,
and Keanu paid dearly for a choice he made a long time ago: turning down Speed 2. He had his reasons for the decision, though. "It was just a situation in life, where I
got the script, and I read the script, and I was like argh!" Keanu's biggest problem with the movie was
its basic concept. "Bus and cruise ship, speed, bus, not so fast,
then cruise ship is even slower than a bus, and then I was just like, 'I love you guys,
but I just can't do it.'" Regardless of whether or not the reviews suggested
he'd made the right choice, spoiler alert: he did, the decision put Keanu in Hollywood's
bad books. The actor says he was blackballed by Fox for
more than a decade after he turned down the not-so-speedy sequel. He calls it "movie jail," and during the period
leading up to his recent resurgence, Keanu didn't make too many tentpole flicks. The ones he did make didn't help, either,
in an interview with Esquire, Keanu referred once again to being sent to "Studio Movie
Jail" after the less-than-stellar critical performance of The Day The Earth Stood Still,
a movie he calls "The Day my Career Stood Still." One of Keanu Reeves' oddest roles has to be
as the serial killer from The Watcher, a movie with a truly dismal score of 10 percent on
Rotten Tomatoes. According to Keanu, however, he never wanted
to do it, and was actually forced into playing the role. He told the Calgary Sun: "I never found the script interesting, but
a friend of mine forged my signature on the agreement. I couldn't prove he did, and I didn't want
to get sued for not honoring my contract, so I had no other choice but to do the film." Keanu was held to a year-long silence about
the film, but rumors started circulating early that suggested he was upset right from the
start, particularly about the size of his role, which had started out small and soon
became the center of the film. The actor couldn't talk about it until 12
months after the release, though, and he didn't, when it premiered, he refused to do any promotion
for it whatsoever. The world first met Keanu Reeves as the less-than-quick
witted Ted "Theodore" Logan...and the world also hasn't let him forget about it, either. "Is it frustrating to have people think of
you as a complete bozo, when the truth is you're just a man with below average intelligence?" Although Between Two Ferns is usually all
in good fun, Keanu has in fact struggled with the public's perception of him as a man of
low intelligence. GQ says the image wasn't helped by his early
interactions with the press, where he was clearly uncomfortable with being on the receiving
end of question after question. When Rolling Stone asked him about people's
assumptions that he was basically playing himself, Keanu said: "That's frustrating. That's very frustrating...I get no respect." But this misperception couldn't be further
from the truth. Richard Linklater, who directed Keanu in A
Scanner Darkly, told Esquire: "It would be one of the biggest misreadings
you could ever do to say, 'that's not a super-intelligent person.'" The Matrix's Laurence Fishburne agrees, saying: "He's also incredibly curious and intelligent. It takes intelligence to be funny. His comic timing is excellent. He's survived because he's managed to evolve
with the business we're in. That's down to curiosity and intelligence." Keanu Reeves' love of motorcycles is nothing
short of legendary, and it's incredibly rewarding for the actor, too. As Reeves told Esquire: "It's the physical sensation of riding, the
wind, the smell, the sights, the connection to the machine, the living-in-nature." But this love of motorcycles has also meant
the actor has endured a number of injuries, going all the way back to 1988, when he took
a hairpin corner too fast. Keanu dumped the bike, and says he laid there
for around half an hour, convinced that he was going to die. He nearly did, too, he still has the scars,
and is also missing his spleen thanks to the accident. Since then, there have been more surgeries,
more scars, and more broken bones, including one bone that Keanu himself saw, after taking
a car bumper off with his right leg. Some of his teeth are fake, also thanks to
his many accidents. So which one was the worst? Keanu himself says: "You know, it's weird. After the accidents the adrenaline kicks in,
so it's not really painful. Maybe the broken ribs part. That was pretty uncomfortable." Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus, even more Grunge videos about your favorite
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