Ione Skye’s Secret Fling with Matthew Perry and More Revelations From New Memoir

Say Anything… star Ione Skye opens up about failed on-set hookups and her romances with some of the world’s biggest rock stars in her memoir Say Everything.

After her Hollywood breakthrough in 1986’s River’s Edge alongside Keanu Reeves and Crispin Glover, Skye was suddenly shot into teenage superstardom. She then followed her early success with the most iconic role of her career as high school valedictorian Diane Court in 1989’s Say Anything…, in which she was memorably wooed by costar John Cusack (and a boombox playing Peter Gabriel‘s “In Your Eyes”).

Skye’s real love life soon became a hot topic, after she married Beastie Boys member Adam Horovitz and had a short-lived fling with Friends star Matthew Perry before raising a family with Australian singer-songwriter Ben Lee.

Skye details all of her celebrity romances (and much more) in Say Everything: A Memoir, so keep scrolling for some of the biggest revelations:

Anthony Kiedis

One of the more uncomfortable passages in Say Everything: A Memoir involves Skye’s relationship with the Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Kiedis when she was just 16 and he was 24.

The two met shortly after the rocker finished a stint in rehab, and Skye remembers that they were “full-blown, instantly enmeshed” after she surprised the singer backstage at a Chili Peppers concert in Tucson. Skey describes a fraught romance with the singer, in part because Kiedis allegedly used drugs throughout their time together.

“My ‘Falling for Anthony’ phase was quickly replaced by my ‘Saving Anthony’ phase,” she said. “Sometimes I’d drive all night looking for him, trawling the usual spots over and over.”

The actress added: “Anthony would have to hit rock bottom to quit drugs, just as I’d have to hit my own rock bottom to quit the feeling I had to take care of Anthony. The need to save him was an addiction in itself. I was hooked.”

Skye claimed that, aside from trying to stop Kiedis’s alleged drug use, she also dealt with the singer’s alleged infidelity.

“He was always cheating on me, and I was never surprised,” she claimed.

When Skye discovered sometime later that she was pregnant at age 17, she made the decision to have an abortion.

“While I regretted not being more careful, and putting myself in danger, I was taking care of myself now, making a choice that felt good and important for my future,” she wrote. “I wanted to be young and also to keep working. I would not have a baby at 17, with someone who didn’t want to be a dad, wouldn’t commit to me, and had anger issues. Not to mention the heroin.”

The couple broke up soon after.

Keanu Reeves

Skye confessed to harbouring a crush on her River’s Edge costar all throughout filming and finally made her move once they spent some time alone.

The actress interrupted Reeves as he was trying to take a shower, recalling: “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. I zeroed in on his beautiful throat, sucking and making out with it.”

However, when Skye tried to take things further, Keanu stopped her and admitted: “I, ah, don’t think I want to.”

“We were still stuck together, breathing hard. I pressed my face, red from the kiss and now embarrassment, into his chest. No zipless f— for me,” she remembered.

Skye reported that it was “only a little awkward” between them on the River’s Edge set after their near-miss, though she credited Reeves with consistently treating her with respect.

John Cusack

Skye confirmed that, although she and Cusack both had crushes on each other while filming Say Anything…, they never acted on their feelings until decades later.

Once Skye had divorced her husband Horovitz in 2000, she reconnected with Cusack and they engaged in a brief fling.

“I’d slept with Johnny after my divorce because I’d needed to get him out of my system and it had worked — now I knew we were meant to be in love only in the movies,” she wrote.

The actress said that, aside from their brief fling, she’d had “sweet friendship” with Cusack and “always admired him.”

Adam Horovitz

Skye and Horovitz got married in 1992, but their relationship was tumultuous. The pair had multiple separations and brief reconciliations before their divorce in 2000.

The Arrested Development actress addressed the trauma of splitting from the Beastie Boys member, acknowledging feeling as if “the floor [fell] out from under” her feet when she received a letter from Horovitz asking for a divorce.

One of the ways Skye coped with the breakup of her marriage was to get her “Adam” tattoo altered to a more empowering message.

“As a divorce present to myself, I’d had ADAM turned into MADAME. I loved my MADAME tattoo,” she declared.

She also credits her strained marriage with helping her discover her bisexuality. She later dated model Jenny Shimizu and socialite Ingrid Casares.

Matthew Perry

Shortly after her divorce, Skye received an unexpected phone call from her A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon costar Perry, who she said suggested they catch up over a “sober drink” since they were both recovering addicts.

“I normally didn’t accept booty calls, which I assumed this was… but it was Matthew Perry! I was curious, and he was adorable and handsome and rich and presumably sober, so I said yes,” she noted.

Perry is described by Skye as taller than she remembered and “quite dashing,” with “a great head of hair” and a “playful twist of a smile.”

“Somehow I didn’t see Chandler from Friends, I saw the boy I knew when we were 16 and 17,” she explained.

Skye wrote that, before long, the two were under the covers in Perry’s bedroom. “The sex was perfectly pleasant, though the silent talking heads on the flat-screen distracted me and Matthew seemed far away. Neither of us gave it our all,” she admitted.

The two hooked up a second time one week later, but this was the last time Skye ever saw Perry in person. Skye later shared the final text she’d received from Perry before he died at age 54 in October 2023.

“I was meditating (I meditate now) and ‘In Your Eyes’ started playing. And I instantly thought of you and how beautiful you are,” Perry wrote to her.

Ben Lee

Skye tied the knot with Aussie rocker Lee in December 2008 and the couple welcomed daughter Goldie Priya the following year.

The pair first met when Skye was 26 and Lee was 18, but they wouldn’t begin dating until over a decade later. Skye had recently split from Horovitz, while Lee had broken up with Claire Danes.

Once they pair finally hooked up, Skye realized: “Our romp had activated something in me. I wanted more and felt confident I could bag this kid again, easy-peasy. I was hot and sexy and desirable, still in my prime. Why play games? Ben wasn’t some stranger. God, what a relief. I could just be myself.”

Skye said that her only regret from her courtship with Lee was their decision to get married in a traditional Hindu ceremony in India.

“Cringe-worthy, I know. This was before the mainstream conversation about cultural appropriation,” she confessed.

The actress said of her life now: “Ben and I have been married for 16 (faithful!) years. Is it a coincidence that the three major relationships in my life have been with musicians? Maybe not. I grew up wishing my father’s [‘Mellow Yellow’ singer Donovan] songs had expressed love for me. Now my partner sings achingly beautiful, romantic songs about me, and silly, sweet ones for our daughters to make them laugh. His love, devotion, and camaraderie make the world feel limitless, yet safe, for all of us. And nothing has helped me make peace with my fatherless past more than seeing Ben father my daughters.”

Say Everything: A Memoir is available on Amazon and other retailers now.