Oscar nominee Barry Keoghan has hit back at accusations that he is a “deadbeat dad”, and says social media claims about his relationship with his son are being used as “ammunition” against him.
The Irish actor, 32, has one child, Brando, with former partner Alyson Kierans and has been outspoken about his 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 added that his son’s absence from his social media means “people draw a narrative and go ‘absent father, s**t, 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.”
The Saltburn actor added he is “just trying to make a living, trying to get a good body of work and create safety for my child”.
In 2023, Keoghan won the Bafta best supporting actor prize for his role in dark comedy The Banshees Of Inisherin and also received an Academy Award nod for the role.
He also 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 actor says he wants his upbringing to be seen as inspiration to young children, and not as a “pity story”.
His scenes in Saltburn went viral when at the end of the film Keoghan is seen dancing naked around a luxury manor to Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Murder On The Dancefloor.
Keoghan said that being unclothed was not originally in the script, but following conversation with director Emerald Fennell, they “got to that place”.
“My hesitation was (the) dancing, I don’t like dancing,” he added.
“But if it’s required, when it’s the character, again, this is this kind of thing of when it’s not you you’ll do it, and if it feels right and if it kind of moves the script and the story forward.”
Keoghan split with Kierans in mid-2023 and has since been linked with American singer Sabrina Carpenter, appearing in the video for her song “Please, Please, Please”.
He has appeared in 2021 superhero movie Eternals and 2017 horror The Killing Of A Sacred Deer, and has also received Bafta nods for roles in Saltburn and Calm With Horses.
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.
