Val Kilmer shared his Lou Reed story a lot over the years.
Before Val Kilmer’s death in April 2025, the actor had shared plenty about his life on social media. Part of that was his story about The Velvet Underground’s Lou Reed and a party that Val once threw for the musician years before Lou’s own death in 2013. But what was Val Kilmer’s tweet about Lou Reed exactly?
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To be clear, Val’s tweet about Lou on X (formerly Twitter) was not a one-time thing. Val tweeted about the same story regarding an interesting encounter with Lou more than once. When some of Val’s followers on X commented to ask questions, he responded in more detail. Val even elaborated on it in a more lengthy Facebook post once.
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What did Val Kilmer say in his tweet about Lou Reed?
On Oct. 28, 2013, the day after Lou died, Val tweeted, “I once tickled Lou Reed. I regretted it for the longest while as he spoke to me few times after that dinner. But I’m glad now. He needed it.” He tweeted about it again on Feb. 1, 2017, when he wrote, “He leaned in and said, ‘I kno[w] martial arts.’ So talented, but so tortured by his dad.”
When someone commented in the thread under the tweet to ask about Lou’s relationship with his dad, Val replied, “His dad was just super dark and negative to Lou and always told him he was worthless.”
In Val’s Facebook post on the same day, he elaborated on the Lou tickling story and explained that he tickled Lou’s arm under the table because of Lou’s grumpiness toward the other dinner guests.
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“He leaned into me and whispered in his toughest Brooklyn accent, ‘I know martial arts…,’” Val wrote on Facebook. “Well I’d seen his sword play on my front lawn at my ranch in New Mexico more than once, still have the sword he gave my son, so I knew I wasn’t in immediate peril. It was almost sweet how sensitive he was. But so tortured. What a talent! We were all there to just acknowledge his coolness.”
Val Kilmer was active on social media before his death.
Before Val’s death, his tweets weren’t the only place where he interacted with fans and shared updates on his life and thoughts. He shared his artwork on Instagram, where he also posted clips from some of his older movies and photos from behind the scenes over the years. It’s the one place, however, where Val did not share that Lou Reed story over and over.
