He's fronted major blockbuster Hollywood franchises like John Wick and The Matrix, but behind the scenes, movie star Keanu Reeves has weathered staggering heartbreak in his personal life.
In the same year the first Matrix movie came out in 1999 to widespread critical acclaim, Keanu, who was in his mid-30s, was privately dealing with the devastating loss of his daughter, Ava, with his then-girlfriend, Jennifer Syme. The actor's daughter was tragically stillborn at eight months in December that year.
Just sixteen months later, Keanu faced another profound loss when his former partner Jennifer, who was 28, passed away in a car crash in Los Angeles in April 2001.
© Ron Galella Collection via GettyKeanu's long-lasting grief
While the actor is notoriously private when it comes to his personal life and has never publicly spoken about their deaths specifically, he once admitted that grief and loss "don't ever go away". Speaking to The Guardian in 2019, the star spoke about resonating with his character John Wick, who experienced his own lost love.
"With any character, the way I think about it is, you have the role on the page, you have the vision of the director and you have your life experience," Keanu told the publication. Addressing whether he brought his own experience to the role, Keanu said: "Oh yeah, I thought it was one of the foundations of the role for John Wick. I love his grief."
He added: "Well, for the character and in life, it’s about the love of the person you’re grieving for, and any time you can keep company with that fire, it is warm. I absolutely relate to that, and I don’t think you ever work through it. Grief and loss, those are things that don’t ever go away. They stay with you.”
Keanu, who also lost his close friend, actor River Phoenix, in 1993, once admitted that he often thinks about death.
"I'm 59, so I'm thinking about death all the time," he told BBC News in 2024. "Hopefully it's not crippling, but hopefully it's sensitised [us] to an appreciation of the breath we have, and the relationships that we have the potential to have," he added.
Keanu found love again
© Getty ImagesThe actor has kept his love life relatively out of the limelight over the decades, but in 2018, he found love again with artist Alexandra Grant. The pair made their red carpet debut together in November 2019 at the LACMA Art + Film Gala in Los Angeles, and have since made several more loved-up appearances.
At the 2026 MOCA Gala in May, Keanu was asked by People if he agrees that Alexandra is an “easy woman to love,” to which he replied: "Yes!".
As to whether their love had changed her art, Alexandra said: “I would say that all painting is autobiographical, even though maybe even in abstraction it doesn't look like there's a big narrative, but I would definitely say that my paintings become happier.”
