nice

Keanu Reeves has a new movie out called Good Fortune. It costars Seth Rogen, Aziz Ansari, Sandra Oh, and Keke Palmer. He’s also currently doing a Broadway revival of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot with his Bill and Ted co-star Alex Winter. As such, he’s been on a big PR blitz lately. Keanu has no online presence and tends to disappear from the public eye when he’s not promoting anything, so it’s been a treat to get so many new interviews and soundbites.

One of the biggest things Keanu keeps getting asked about is the prevalence of AI-generated deepfake images and scammers using his likeness. Because he has no social media accounts, Keanu is one of the most-imitated stars and has to pay a company to combat scams by removing fake accounts and AI images. A few weeks ago, a fake picture of Keanu and his longtime girlfriend Alexandra Grant made its way around the internet. It showed them in wedding attire and announced that they’d gotten married. Both Alexandra and Keanu’s rep issued statements to deny it. While on the Today show, Keanu brushed it off because ”we’re in that world”. Well, the picture looked real enough that it fooled a lot of people. At the Good Fortune premiere, Keanu shared that the rumors don’t bother him and that he got a lot of “nice messages” from people.

“Well, that wasn’t the first time,” he joked to E! News about rumors circulating that the pair are married. “We’ve been going out for a long time.”

Reeves’ comments come weeks after Grant, 52, reacted to the rumors on Instagram, calling them “fake news.” Alongside a photo of the couple kissing on a staircase, she wrote on Sept. 24, “This is a real photo. Not an engagement photo or an AI wedding announcement… simply a kiss! (Albeit maybe the moment right before or after it… given the slightly goofy expressions on our faces!).”

“I’m sharing it here to say thank you to everyone for the congratulations on our wedding. Except we didn’t get married,” the visual artist continued. “Good news is much needed these days, but it’s still fake news, so be careful out there! So, here’s a bit of real happiness!”

Reeves told E! News that Grant “did a wonderful [job]” setting the record straight.

“The wedding, it’s a nice thing,” he said. “People did a lot of nice messages and stuff, but Alexandra just did a wonderful [job] addressing. Like, ‘Thank you, but here’s the reality.’ “

[From People]

Of course people were going to send Keanu nice messages! He’s one of the most beloved actors alive and is widely regarded as one of the nicest people on the planet. I hate that people don’t leave him and Alexandra alone, but at least in this case, he got to feel the love. I wonder if he received a bunch of congratulatory text messages from friends since that’s the only way people could send them to him directly. I’m sure Alexandra also received tons of well wishes and shared them with him. I can’t imagine how stressful it is to be famous in a world where people can just make stuff up about you and back it up by using deepfake AI images. Being so chill about it is such a classic Keanu response, but I suppose he really is used to it by now.

Keanu and Alex were on The Tonight Show on Monday night. Stephen Colbert, who paid tribute to the late Diane Keaton earlier in the show and aired clips of a 2012 interview he’d done with her, asked Keanu to share any fond memories he had of working with her on Something’s Gotta Give. Keanu called her “an extraordinary, unique, special person and artist” and talked about how much he loved watching Diane and Jack Nicholson film that scene where they insult each other. It was a really nice moment.

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Photos credit: mpi099/MediaPunch/INSTARimages and Getty