Keanu Reeves and Alexandra Grant Held Hands—And the Internet Loved It
Keanu Reeves—he who is “too good for this world”—appears to have found love. The John Wick star and pillar of mindful masculinity made it red-carpet official (like Instagram official but for celebrities) with artist Alexandra Grant on Monday night at the LACMA Art+Film Gala in Los Angeles. They held hands; they exchanged knowing glances. And they brought an almost bizarre amount of comfort and joy to those of us who are invested in Reeves’s well-being.
The sources of our deeply felt contentment are many: There is the fact that the intensely private Reeves has seldom brought a love interest to a red-carpet event in the span of his 35-year career, especially in recent years, instead coming solo, brooding, and probably going home to secretly donate millions to children’s hospitals. Fans are also admittedly especially emotional about Reeves and Grant in light of his tragic past: In 1999 he and his girlfriend, Jennifer Syme, mourned the birth of a stillborn daughter; two years later 28-year-old Syme was killed in a car crash. In the decades that followed, Reeves, now 55, never married.
But in addition to the history and internet-boyfriend mythology that swirls around Reeves, his and Grant’s relationship has drawn approving attention in its own right. For better or worse (and in a bit of sad commentary on the usual Hollywood-dating dynamics), fans are widely celebrating that Grant, 46, is actually close to Reeves in age (albeit still nine years his junior), does not dye her gray hair, and appears to be slightly taller than he is. All further proof, not that any was needed, that Reeves is one of the few true-blue men in the game.
Of far greater interest to me, however, is that Grant and Reeves seem to vibe on an artistic and intellectual level, as longtime friends and collaborators. Grant illustrated a 2011 “grown-up’s picture book,” (which I will definitely be ordering momentarily) Ode to Happiness, while Reeves wrote the text. The pair reunited for a sequel, Shadows, in 2016, and cofounded a publishing house, X Artists’ Books. In one photo that has surfaced of them, Grant, in a flowing cardigan, perches on a blue ladder among her art while Reeves stares pensively into the camera wearing a leather jacket. (Has anything ever been more romantic?) They have—astutely, I think—been called a “dope cybercouple.”
It’s quite the development for the burgeoning Keanuissance. I’m confident Little Women will be great, but as one fan raved on Twitter, Reeves and Grant’s relationship is already “the feel-good holiday movie of the year.”
Originally Appeared on Vogue
