Irish actor Barry Keoghan has defended his parenting choices, claiming his relationship with his young son is being used as “ammunition” against him.
The 32-year-old star, who is currently dating US singer-songwriter Sabrina Carpenter, has a two-year-old son, Brando, with a former partner.
Keoghan had a difficult childhood, which saw him grow up in foster care and his mother die after struggling with drug addiction.
Keoghan told Spotify’s The Louis Theroux Podcast: “If I didn’t have tough skin or the strength to have, I wouldn’t be sitting here. Of course, (my childhood is) going to affect me being a father when I had no blueprint to take from.
“People just read that (as) laziness and go, ‘Oh, that’s no excuse to be an absent father’. I’m not an absent father.
“But it’s just, again, people love to use my son as ammunition or whatever. And it kind of leads me to stop, the more attention I’ve got lately and the more in the public I’ve become, the less I’ve posted about my child, because I don’t think it’s fair to put my child online.”
He said his son’s absence from his social media means “people draw a narrative and go ‘absent father, shit, deadbeat dad’, and more disgusting things I wouldn’t even repeat”.
“Just the audacity of some people, man. It sickens me, makes me furious,” he added.
“I’ve been off it (social media) because when I’m going through a role, I’m getting into character. I stay away from the internet.
“But, again, when I’ve got a bit of time, I am a curious being like all of us and you want to know what (people are saying online) especially when it’s slander and when it’s bad comments attacking my appearance or attacking me as a father.”
He said he’s “just trying to make a living, trying to get a good body of work and create safety for my child”.
Keoghan in Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn. Pic: MGM/Amazon Studios
Speaking about his childhood, Keoghan told the podcast that his mother was “gorgeous, almost like six-foot, dark hair, just beautiful”, but drug addiction “caught her”.
“It’s sad to see the deterioration of people around the area and see people kind of struggle with it and the recovery they’re in now,” he added.
“It caught my mum, it caught my uncle who died of it and caught my father as well.”
He says he does not “blame” his mother and admitted the experience of going to more than 10 foster places “kind of haunts me still”, before going to live with his grandmother.
The Dublin-born star said he wants his upbringing to be seen as an inspiration to young children, and not as a “pity story”.
Saltburn explores class, power and sex. Pic: MGM/Amazon Studios
In 2023, Keoghan won a BAFTA for his supporting role in the Oscar-winning comedy The Banshees Of Inisherin.
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Later that year, he starred in Emerald Fennell’s psychological thriller, Saltburn, with the film’s climax featuring a naked Keoghan dancing around a luxury mansion to Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Murder On The Dancefloor.
Keoghan’s latest movie is drama Bird and he is currently filming Netflix’s film of Peaky Blinders.
The Louis Theroux Podcast is available on Spotify now.