Getty Alexandra Grant and Keanu Reeves
Keanu Reeves, veteran actor, typically keeps a low profile when it comes to sharing his personal life, but now that he’s found love with Alexandra Grant, The Matrix star is ready to go public with his new relationship.
On November 2, Reeves held hands with Grant while attending the LACMA Art and Film Gala in Los Angeles. While the rumored couple had been spotted out before in West Hollywood, this marked the first time they walked the red carpet together, and the first time in decades in which Reeves has gone public with any relationship.
Reeves, 55, and Grant, 46, have been friends for over a decade, but things only recently turned romantic over the past few months. An insider revealed Life & Style, “Everyone is ecstatic that he’s finally found happiness with such a wonderful woman. Keanu doesn’t stop raving about her!
Here’s what you need to know about Alexandra Grant….
1. Reeves & Grant Were Business Partners at X Artists Books
The John Wick actor and Grant first collaborated on the book Ode to Happiness and Shadows, which was released in 2011. While Reeves co-authored the story with friend Janey Bergman, the grown-up pictures book featured drawings by Grant.
The duo worked together on the second edition of the book, entitled Shadows, which they released with German publisher Steidl.
Last year, Reeves told LA Magazine of co-founding X Artists Books with Grant, “Creatively, we wanted to work with other people and give them opportunity.”
Grant added, “I have this memory of being at Steidl, and that world has a lot in common with the production world of film in that there’s a lot of waiting, waiting, waiting. But there was this moment there when Keanu, who is Canadian, said, ‘We’re going to show them some American can-do!’ We really like ‘can-do.’ Some people are the kind of dreamers who have a lot of ideas but don’t like to get things done. I think we both like to have the idea and get it into the world.”
2. Grant Is a Graduate of Swathmore College, A School Which Only Accepts 9.5 Percent of Applicants
Keanu Reeves and Alexandra Grant
After spending parts of her childhood living in Mexico, France and Spain, Grant attended an extremely elite private liberal arts college, Swathmore, which is located in Pennsylvania, 11 miles southwest of Philadelphia. According to her website, the questions that drove her to pursue a career in art were, “How do the languages we speak and the images we see form how we think and exchange ideas?” and “How can artists and writers work to create and influence culture in an increasingly technology-driven world?”
After earning a BA in History and Studio Art in 1995, she attended California College of Arts and Crafts in San Francisco, where she earned her MFA in Drawing and Painting.
3. Grant’s Artwork Is on Display In Galleries Over the World
From the Honor Fraser Gallery in Los Angeles, to the Galerie Lelong in New York City, and the Galerie Gradiva in Paris, Grant’s art has been shared in numerous countries over the years. She been awarded the COLA Individual Artist Fellowship and The Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant.
To see pieces of Grant’s work which have been included in museum collections, they are on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art in LA, Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas, and the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, Canada. Her next show in 2020 is entitled “Solo Booth,” and will be presented at the Marfa Invitational in Texas.
4. Grant Founded the Non-Profit Project grantLOVE
In addition to her highly successful career, Grant makes sure to give back, and is the creator of the grantLOVE project, which raises funds for arts-based non-profits. They’ve helped the Heart of Los Angeles, Project Angel Food, Art of Elysium, 18th Street Arts Center, and LAXART.
Part of the Grant started X Artists’ Books with Reeves was to create a publishing house for artist-centered books. Of the books they like to publish Grant said, “Thematically we’re really interested in darkness and politics. We’re also interested in marginal voices that are exciting, and in exploring the performative and experimental. I think a book can become a seed, a DNA for world-building.”
In addition to helping publish other artists’ books, Grant has authored two of her own. Her first, MOCA Focus, was published in 2007, and The Artists Prison, which she co-wrote with Eve Wood in 2017.
5. Reeves’ Last Public Romantic Relationship Ended In Fatal Heartbreak
While Reeves shot down reports that he dated Claire Forlani, telling New York Daily News that they were “just good friends” in 2006, the last confirmed public relationship the Hollywood veteran had was with Jennifer Syme.
According to People, the couple started dating in 1999, and Syme became pregnant with their first child. Sadly, they daugther, Ava, was a stillborn at eight months, and the two broke up soon after. While they remained friends, one day after the pair had brunch at Crepes on Cole in San Fransisco, Syme was involved in a fatal car accident on April 2, 2001.
In an interview with Parade in 2006 Reeves said, “Grief changes shape, but it never ends. People have a misconception that you can deal with it and say, ‘It’s gone, and I’m better.’ They’re wrong. When the people you love are gone, you’re alone. All you can do is hope that grief will be transformed and, instead of feeling pain and confusion, you will be together again in memory, that there will be solace and pleasure there, not just loss.”
At the end of the interview he added, “I’m trying not to be alone so much. And, man, it’s a struggle. I want to get married. I want to have kids. That’s at the top of the mountain. I’ve got to climb the mountain first. I’ll do it. Just give me some time.”
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