Inside Matrix star Keanu Reeves’ tragic life after girlfriend’s freak death and baby heartbreak – before he found love
MATRIX Resurrections star Keanu Reeves has had a glittering career, but away from the cameras the actor has lived through a series of personal tragedies.
From the stillborn birth of his daughter Ava to the death of former girlfriend, Jennifer Syme, it hasn’t been an easy ride for the 57-year-old actor – which is why fans were delighted when he confirmed he’d found love back in 2019.
When Keanu stepped out with artist girlfriend Alexandra Grant, now 48, it was the first relationship he’d gone public with in years – with the Matrix star opting to previously play his relationship cards close to his chest for decades.
Now the couple have been together publicly for over two years, and are said to be very much in love.
Here, we take a closer look at Keanu’s tragedy-struck private life, and how he finally found happiness…
Death and disaster
While the Hollywood actor has been blessed with the looks and talent which made him a box-office star in films such as Speed, The Matrix and Point Break, tragedy has plagued his personal life from childhood.
Keanu’s dad walked out when he was just three, before being imprisoned for drug offences.
And over the course of his glittering film career, the Speed actor has seen loved ones and best friends die in horrific circumstances, including a drug overdose.
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These trials haven’t made the star bitter – quite the opposite.
Keanu is widely considered one of the nicest and most generous stars in Hollywood – and had previously been linked to big-name stars including Sandra Bullock, Amanda de Cadenet and Jill Schoelen.
‘Inside jokes and knowing smiles’
Keanu and Alexandra met in 2009 — eight years after Keanu’s ex-partner Jennifer Syme died in a car accident.
Back in the late noughties, they bonded over Keanu’s self-confessed “self-pity” poetry when she was given some of the actor’s words by a mutual friend in LA.
She then drew images to go with the words as a present for him, which would later become a book called Ode to Happiness, published in 2011.
“It was a surprise and a private gift,” she said.
“We didn’t make the book to publish it; it was a meant to put a big smile on our faces and make everyone laugh.”
It was a success, leading to them make another one in 2016 called Shadows.
A journalist who interviewed them last year said: “In conversation, the two friends share an easy rapport and speak in a comfortable shorthand fuelled by inside jokes and knowing smiles.”
Decade of tragedy
It’s a happiness Keanu would have struggled to imagine 20 years earlier.
On Christmas Eve 1999, his daughter Ava Archer Syme-Reeves was stillborn, eight months into Jennifer’s pregnancy.
Ava’s mother, Jennifer Syme, met Keanu at a 1998 promotional party for his alt-rock band Dogstar where they “instantly fell in love”.
But, crippled by the loss of their child, the young couple’s relationship broke down just weeks after their bereavement.
Fatal crash
It was two years after the heartbreak of losing baby Ava that Jennifer attended a party hosted by goth rocker Marilyn Manson.
Though she was given a lift home from the Hollywood bash, she allegedly drove her Jeep back to the party while drunk and crashed into a row of parked cars.
Jennifer was thrown from the front seat and died instantly.
Keanu was said to have found it “very, very difficult to cope with her death” and harnessed his grief as the troubled title character in John Wick, who lost his wife in the 2014 film.
He said: “I thought it was one of the foundations of the role. I love his grief.
“I relate to that, and I don’t think you ever work through it.
“Grief and loss don’t ever go away.”
Sister’s 10-year cancer battle
Ava’s stillbirth came after Keanu spent a decade helping his sister, Kim battle the life-threatening blood cancer, leukaemia.
Keanu became her main carer in the early 1990s helping to nurse her back to health while his acting career went stratospheric.
He said: “She was always there for me, you know. I will always be here for her.”
She recovered from her illness and Keanu has since set up a cancer charity, but chose not to attach his name to it.
Best friend death
Then in October 1993, his best friend and actor River Phoenix died at the age of 23.
The Stand By Me star collapsed outside Hollywood music venue The Viper Room after taking a “Speedball” — a combination of morphine and cocaine.
Phoenix said Keanu was “like my older brother. But shorter”.
In a joint interview, Keanu told him: “I’ve always loved you, River. River is my best friend and I don’t have many of them.”
Keanu, who was 23 at the time, was filming blockbuster Speed with Sandra Bullock when River died.
Sandra said: “I think Keanu has gone through a lot even though he doesn’t let on. He hides a great pain.”
Asked about River, Keanu added: “How was I affected? How was I affected?
“Uh, what do I say? I was terribly, terribly, terribly sad. Incredibly sad. And, um, I miss him very much.”
Love at last
Given all the loss he has experienced, Keanu’s happiness with Alexandra Grant is especially sweet.
As well as their book collaborations, they launched a publishing company, X Artists’ Books, in 2017, aimed at publishing “unusual collaborations”.
Before going official, the couple had previously appeared together at events, including the Saint Laurent Men’s Spring Summer show in Malibu.
Their walks on the red carpet hand-in-hand were a complete change of tack for Keanu, who has previously kept his love life extremely private.
In 2017, he even told Esquire that he didn’t think he would ever have a family after his tragic past.
He said: “I’m too… It’s too late. It’s over.”
But with his latest romance, it looks like the prospect of living happily ever after is now far from over.
