Keanu Reeves' Stepfather Became His Mentor after Biological Dad Left Him & His Mom Who Ran Away from Home

Keanu Reeves' mother ran away from home before meeting his biological father. The man who helped conceive the star failed in his parental duties, and someone else had to step in to make Keanu a great actor.

While Keanu Reeves is one of the most loved US celebrities, he makes it a point to keep his personal life private. It's rare for him to offer any information about himself, especially about his family life.

Interviewers have only been able to get scraps of information here and there, leading people to puzzle together the star's life story. Keanu appears to be quite touchy when it comes to opening up about his family.

In August 2000, Rolling Stone interviewed the actor and asked him about his childhood and which rumors about him were true, and he had a single reply. Keanu told the interviewer that he was born in Beirut, Lebanon.

When asked what he was like as a young boy, the star revealed that he was private. He explained that he was social with other children but still private before adding with a half-smile, "It's a particle, it's a wave."

That was pretty much all he was willing to say about that! Luckily for his fans, as Keanu got older, he became more willing to open up about his background and personal life.

KEANU'S MOTHER AND BIOLOGICAL FATHER

In September 2019, Keanu sat down for an in-depth interview for the "Conversations with Charlie" podcast, where he spoke about his parents and early childhood. He revealed how his parents were around 21 or 22 when they got together in Lebanon.

The actor believed his father, Samuel Reeves, of Chinese-Hawaiian descent, had left college for Lebanon. His British mother, Patricia Taylor, ran away from her home in London and moved to Paris, where she worked as a showgirl and clothing designer.

Taylor ended up working with musicians like Dolly Parton and Anne Murray. When she met Samuel in Lebanon, they fell in love and had Keanu before staying in the city for a few months and then relocating to Sydney, Australia.

The star's parents only lived in Australia for a few months, and Kim, Keanu's younger sister, was born during that time. Samuel and Taylor were married, but he left the family after Kim's birth.

The actor was only three years old when his father abandoned them. The former couple ended up divorcing in 1966 before Taylor, and her children relocated again to New York.

Eventually, they found their way to Toronto, Canada. In 1991, during a previous Rolling Stone interview, Keanu touched on the relationship he and his father had by saying:

"The story with me and my dad’s pretty heavy. It’s full of pain and woe and [expletive] loss and all that [expletive].”

FINDING A LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

While in New York, Taylor met a man named Paul Aaron, and they married in 1970. Sadly, the couple's relationship failed to work after six months, and they divorced the following year, but Aaron was later instrumental in Keanu's acting career.

He'd worked on Broadway before finding his way into Hollywood. Aaron stayed in contact with Keanu, helped introduce him to show business, and when he was 15, he got to work as a personal assistant on the former's movie.

Keanu had wanted to be an actor from that tender age. Even though Aaron and Taylor were divorced, he continued assisting her son with his acting career, with Keanu recalling:

“So eventually I started working, through Paul Aaron, got a green card. Then at 20, got in my car and drove to Hollywood.”

Besides acting, Keanu, who was often the class clown, also liked sport. He actually got himself a talent agent when he was a teenager after being seen in a play and then dropped out of high school before graduating.

The star got to do some television work before getting movie roles. He starred in "River's Edge," and his breakout role was in 1986's film "Bill & Ted," after which he never stopped working as an actor.

Aaron wasn't Keanu's last stepfather because his mother married twice more. Taylor fell in love with Robert Miller, a music promoter, and the pair tied the knot in 1976.

Samuel [Reeves] said it hurt and saddened him as he'd never thought his life would end up this way but the star [Keanu Reeves] would "always be my boy."

Together they welcomed a daughter and Keanu's half-sister, Karina Miller. Sadly, that relationship ended in divorce in 1980, and Taylor eventually moved on to her fourth husband, Jack Bond.

She and the Toronto-based hairdresser and salon owner failed to stay together forever and divorced in 1994. While Keanu had lots of stepfathers, the relationship between him and his biological father suffered.

KEANU'S LACK OF A RELATIONSHIP WITH SAMUEL

Keanu hadn't spoken to his biological father, Samuel, since the age of 13. In 1994, the parent was arrested for having illegal substances and was sentenced to ten years in jail before being released two years later.

In the mid-90s, after Samuel was convicted, he reached out to Keanu, but the star never made contact. Speaking about having his father out of his life at a young age, the actor said:

"I think it’s definitely traumatizing. But it’s hard to know how [it affected me] because I don’t know what the other life would have been."

Samuel once explained this about his and his son's relationship, "I pretty much know what he's doing, but he's made it clear that he wants nothing to do with me." The parent acknowledged how being a driver made it difficult for children to get to know him

Keanu's father confessed that he was embarrassed by the way he lived and that the actor described his life as "tragic." Samuel said it hurt and saddened him as he'd never thought his life would end this way, but the star would "always be my boy."