Professionally known as the cool-girl star of “Say Anything” and other 1980s teen movies, Ione Skye also was famous for her tumultuous trysts and relationships with famous men, from Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis to John Cusack, and for becoming swept up in the dark side of Hollywood.
Fortunately, it doesn’t sound like there was anything too dark about Skye’s friendship with Keanu Reeves, as she has revealed in her new, tell-all memoir, “Say Everything.” However, she admitted that the friendship began with her “stalking” the famously easy-going A-list actor while they worked together in her first movie, “Rivers Edge,” a 1986 crime drama. During the film shoot, she also described how their friendship reached an important understanding after she unsuccessfully tried seduce him.
“Even the way he’d rejected me was charming,” Skye wrote, according to Entertainment Weekly.
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – SEPTEMBER 14: Ione Skye attends the Sydney premiere of “Runt” at Hoyts Entertainment Quarter on September 14, 2024 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Hanna Lassen/Getty Images)
Now 54 and a working artist, Skye said she found it “hard not to stare” at Reeves while they worked together on the indie film, about disaffected teens grappling the murder of a girl by one of their friends, according to Entertainment Weekly. At the time, Skye was 16 and therefore underaged, but she may have grown up quickly as the product of a bohemian, show-business childhood. Her father was “Mellow Yellow” singer Donovan.
Reeves, meanwhile, was 22. Skye said she developed a “huge crush” on the future star of “Speed” and the “Matrix” and “John Wick” movies. She said she believed that Reeves felt the same way, so much so that she expected they something intimate might happen between them when she visited him at his studio apartment, as she wrote in her book.
At the time, Skye apparently didn’t think twice about pursuing an older man, probably because 1980s society wasn’t known for being as concerned as it is now about men getting involved with teenage girls. It’s also possible that her recollection of their encounter may be a bit dramatized, while Reeves didn’t respond to an Entertainment Weekly request for comment.
In any case, Skye wrote that she moved in to kiss Reeves, but he told her he was going to take a shower. Skye apparently took this as an invitation because she followed him into the bathroom.
Ione Skye Leitch and Keanu Reeves star in River’s Edge
“Keanu turned on the water and stood with his back to me, hand in the stream, staring up at the showerhead,” Skye wrote, according to Entertainment Weekly. “I maneuvered between him and the open shower curtain, water spraying my back.”
“His beautiful neck was right there, so close I could lick it, so I did,” Skye revealed. “I zeroed in on his beautiful throat, sucking and making out with it. He made a low, growly noise and I felt my stomach turn nicely.”
“‘Oh,’ I heard myself say,” Skye continues. “The room was thick with steam, my wet T-shirt sticking to me, wanting to be peeled off.”
But when Skye reached to unbuckle Reeve’s pants, she wrote that he grabbed her wrist to stop her. He indicated that he didn’t want to take things any further.
“I broke out with a quick, shocked laugh. ‘Sorry!’” she said. But she wrote that Reeves told her, “Don’t be,” as he released her wrist. “We were still stuck together, breathing hard,” she continued. “I pressed my face, red from the kiss and now embarrassment, into his chest.”
Skye said that the older Reeves treated her kindly. “‘Let me, ah, get you a dry shirt,’” he said. “Damn,” Skye thought. “Even the way he’d rejected me was charming.”
Skye wrote that things were “only a little awkward on set the next day. Without saying anything, Keanu let me know he didn’t blame me for trying.”
Apparently, Reeves’ relaxed attitude was useful as they filmed more scenes together, including a sex scene, Skye explained. In “Rivers Edge,” they play friends of the murdered girl who bond over their shared confusion and grief. Incidentally, “Rivers Edge” is based on the real-life 1981 murder of a 16-year-old girl in Milpitas.
Filming the sex scene still got off to an awkward start because Skye admitted she was still attracted to Reeves and sensed that he might be attracted to her, too.
“Careful not to let my hair fall over my face, I straddled Keanu and kissed him for real, moving around, parts to parts, missing sometimes and grinding on his leg or stomach,” Skye wrote. Anyone reading this from a 2025 perspective may wonder about the apparent lack of an intimacy coordinator.
Afterward, Skye and Reeves “pulled apart, a little bashful, a little breathless,” she wrote. When Reeves asked, “You good?’” Skye said, “I sensed by the husky edge to his voice that it wasn’t just me who wanted more.”
“Tracing my lips to the side of his face, I whispered, ‘Can I come to your place after wrap?’” Skye said she asked.
It sounds like Reeves let Skye come back to his studio. But she wrote that visit ended abruptly, too, when Reeves suddenly stopped kissing her and offered to drive her home.
Years later, Skye wrote, she came to the realization that she wasn’t in love with Reeves, but had a big crush on him. But they stayed friends, according to People magazine
Reeves isn’t the only famous man whose interactions with Skye get the spotlight in her memoir, according to People. She also opens up about her fraught relationship with her British father, reveals she did in fact sleep with her “Say Anything” co-star John Cusack after denying they hooked-up for years, and she writes about being “a serial cheater” during her marriage to Beastie Boys rapper Adam Horovitz, confessing that he once caught her canoodling in a swimming pool with another woman.
